HoloPirates: A Tale of Adventure

Burial at Sea

    Clack!!
    "OWW!!!!" I yelled, tapping my feet on the deck. "Can you be a bit more careful??"
    "Aye that, I can." Amelia said, giving me a smirk. "But then I wouldn't get anything done. Anyway, how do you like it?"
    Finally, I looked back down at my wrist, and I saw the now glittering iron hook that was donning the space where my hand used to be. The injury, albeit healed, was still quite uncomfortable, but I felt that with the strapped on hook, I could get used to this more and more. But, the one thing I knew would take some more getting used to was my eye. Amelia said that my injured eye was a lost cause, so she had performed a surgery to get the remains of the damaged eye removed, and now, there was a single eyepatch that was covering my eye. I stood up from the bed in the gigantic medical bay, and I looked over at the large mirror that was on the wall, examining my hook and eyepatch, and I smiled.
    "Aye, I think it looks good." I said. "I feel like a real pirate."
    "Aye that, you've got the looks." She said, then turned back to her massive medicine cabinet.
    She opened up the cabinet, then looked around at the inside, and I stole some glances at the inside of the cabinet. There were hundreds and hundreds of glass bottles, different herbs, preserved medicinal roots, and on the insides of the doors, there were tons and tons of shiny, steel and silver medical instruments. I knew that Amelia had been super happy with the new medical bay, and she was even happier with the near endless amount of storage places for all of her supplies.
    I showed off my shiny hook to the mirror, then turned back around and walked over to he door of the medical bay, then opened it and stared out at the gunnery deck before me. There were about thirty guns per side of the ship, and there were two decks, and I was on the one that was the closest to the top deck, which was a relief to me. As I began to walk though the gun deck, I felt a light breeze begin to blow through the ship, helping to cool me off as the heat of the day was slowly growing. I got up to the stairwell, then made my way onto the top deck, where the clear, blue sky greeted me. We had made our way far out of the Deep Fire by new, leaving it about eighty miles behind us, and as I looked over the deck, I saw the Houshou Pirates all stop and stand at attention as I came up onto the deck. They stood still, sticking their arms by their sides, but I waved my hand through the air dismissively.
    "At ease, the lot of you." I said.
    They went right back to what they were doing, but with the Houshou pirates, I noticed that there seemed to be much more of an air of respect that emanated from them, which was a relief over our last crew, who were in it more for the money. Around the center mast, there stood both Sebastian and Ackner, on different sides of the mast, but they were both restrained with ropes, unable to move or escape. I got around the multiple deck cannons that were between me and the dual layered aft castle, and when I looked up at the aftcastle, I saw all of my friends gathered there, save Amelia. Up on the very middle of the top of the aftcastle, currently manning the wheel, was Marine, and as soon as she saw me, her eyes widened. She dropped control of the wheel to Jansen, then raced over to me, jumping down the two sets of stairs and eventually stomping to a halt in front of me.
"Hey." She said, planting a kiss on my lips. "How did it go?"
I held up the shiny hook, examining it as I rotated it around, and I gave her a smile, trying to make her feel at least a little bit better.
"Eh, its alright." I said. "Doesn't hurt much anymore, so I'm good there."
"Aye, thats good." She replied.
I turned around to the mast, where those two idiots were tied up, and I felt a strange sense of satisfaction, since we had technically completed our mission. And now, we were so much better off than before, albeit it for one thing. On the very bow of the ship, I saw a single casket that was being lowered, very carefully, into the rowboat that was underneath it. Throughout the rowboat, there was a lot of kindling, scraps of paper, and logs that we had taken from the ruins of the fortress, successfully having prepared the rowboat for a cremation at sea. They set the casket into the rowboat, and I watched as they began to pile logs and paper onto the top to it, adding more and more kindling to the pile.
"She didn't deserve that shit." I said to Marine, eyeing Sebastian the entire time.
"Aye that." She replied as the ship crested over another of the beautiful blue waves. "But at least we're paying her respect before we execute these sons of bitches."
"Oh aye, how are they gonna die?"
"How about we throw them the hell overboard?" She said with a smile.
"What about marooning Ackner?" I said. "On a little island, with no merchants to come and rescue him."
She gave out a big, hearty laugh, then turned to me when Ackner and Sebastian both looked at us.
"No, I think he might pull off some stupid, daring escape."
"What, that little wimp?" I said. "Him, pulling off a daring escape? That little shit's gonna get eaten by sharks before he even leaves the beach."
She laughed again, then slapped me on the arm before holding onto my shoulders for support.
"Aye, he might, but I was thinking we could just toss the both of them overboard, and let the sharks have their way at them."
I gave both Sebastian and Ackner a sneer, and then, I saw as the crew began to furl the sails, I felt a light breeze blow through the air, carrying with it an even lighter chill that was carried along with it. I shivered a bit from the light chill, then turned to Marine with a smile.
"Let's get this going, aye?"
"Aye that." She said, then turned to the rest of the crew. "Prepare for the burial!!"
"Aye captain!!"
With that, the crew began to hook the ropes of the pulleys up to the rowboat, and the rest of my friends came up to us, all of us just gathering around as we made our way up to the bow of the ship. We got up around the rowboat, and while we couldn't see the inside of the casket, I could still picture Aqua's cold, lifeless face staring back up at us from when we lowered her inside and sealed it. It haunted me that another person had suffered because of us, and as I looked back at Sebastian and Ackner, I felt disgust flowing through me.
"Hey Marine, I'll be right back, okay?"
"Aye that."
I left her and my friends up on the bow of the ship, and I strode over to the mast where we had the both of them tied up, and while Ackner at least had the decency to look up at me with remorseful eyes as I approached, Sebastian was still staring at the deck of the ship.
"Have you nothing to say?" I asked, trying to look right into his blurry face. "Have you nothing to say to ANY of us?"
He simply stood there, staring at the deck, but finally, I saw his mouth open up to speak.
"No." He said. "I have nothing to say to you mortals."
I could feel the contempt that came from the word mortals, but I shook my head in front of him, trying to be as condescending as possible. And, to my joy, I saw his face contorting further in anger as I acted like he was a child that did something wrong.
"You must let me go mortal." He said. "I command it!! Let me out of here AT ONCE!!!!!"
He screamed the last part, but to his surprise, I stayed my ground, then just squinted my eyes and scrunched my face at him.
"Nah, I think you'll stay right there for the time being."
SPLOOSH!!
I turned to the right, and I saw that at the bow of the ship, the crew had lowered the rowboat and casket into the water, and as I watched, some of the crew grabbed a few pikes and poles, then pushed the rowboat as hard as they could away from the ship. I turned back to Sebastian as the rowboat got farther and farther away from the bow, and I gave him another of the condescending looks that made him the angriest.
"I'll talk to you in a bit, after we bury this wonderful person." I said.
I turned back to the bow, leaving them alone for the time being, and I met back up with all of my friends, and when I stood up next to Marine, Jansen handed Marine a sharpshooter's musket, and he pointed out to the rowboat.
"Think you can hit it from here?" Jansen asked
"Aye that, I can hit the bottle."
"Wait, what bottle?" I asked.
"Oh, look on the aft of the rowboat, there's a little bottle like half full of rum, and we'll shoot that to light the fire."
I looked out over at the rowboat, and true to her word, there was the bottle of rum, and I watched as Marine clicked the hammer back, aimed the musket carefully, and opened her mouth to give her final words.
"Goddammit, you were brave against that roach." She said. "May you rest among your ancestors."
And with that, she pulled the trigger, and a silver bullet exploded out of the barrel of the musket, flying through the air, and with a wonderful hit, it broke the glass of the bottle and the force ignited the rum, splashing the liquid fire all over the kindling and fuel that was over the casket. After a moment of just the rum burning, the rest of the fuel and wood began to catch fire, and, in two minutes, the entire rowboat was engulfed in flames, the fire hungrily and remorselessly consuming the rowboat. Even from this distance, I could feel a little bit of the heat of the flames, and I watched as the fire burned a hole in the boat, and it began to sink under the waves, the water quenching the fire as it sank. And, as the very, very last of the boat and casket sank into the crushing depths of the ocean, I heard Noel and Botan sniffling from close by.
"Aye." Marine said. "What say we end this, once and for all?"
"Aye that." Amelia said. "We need to hunt or dock at a port. We gotta get food."
"Aye, and I want this maggot done with." Jansen said.
We all turned around to Ackner and Sebastian, and Marine smiled.
"Get the shark food!!" She said to Chloe.