The Jolly Roger

Prologue :A Fight For The Jolly Roger

It was a Wednesday, and treason was an epidemic running wild aboard The Jolly Roger. In the Captain's Study, seated behind a polished oak desk on a high backed, heavily cushioned chair, also made of polished oak, was Jean Petite II, the first mate on board the ship and assumed Captain.

Jean was an English man, although he had had a French mother, with a tall, willowy frame and overly large ears. Unfortunately, those were Jean's only remarkable physical traits; aside from his crooked front teeth. Of course, teeth and ears don't make a man and he did have several remarkable personality traits to speak of. Namely he was a greedy, lying, backstabbing individual with a good head for navigation and a better one for mathematics.

So anyway, as Jean Petite sat behind the fancy desk in the Captain's Study he spoke with others of importance on board, one at a time, persuading each individually to vote for him as Captain-elect when the crew would gather for voting that afternoon.

Somewhere below his feet, and in probably the dirtiest cell of the brig, seated on the floor and not in an oaken chair was Carrigan Castaway, who had a jump on Jean's vote garnering by about three days. Carrigan was an English girl, with no French blood to speak of, and was the daughter of The Jolly Roger's late Captain: Lewis Castaway.

Carrigan was in many ways like her father and they had shared a bond beyond that of most daughters and fathers which, Carrigan imagined, must be about the fathers supplying the latest dress fashions and the daughters find a fine young man in a timely manner so that her father didn't have to anymore.

Lewis and Carrigan's relationship had never consisted of fashion or suitors and had instead focused on all of their fine similarities; the least of which being their perfectly straight noses and sun tanned skin and the most obvious being their innate knack for piracy.

Young Carrigan was of an average height for a woman, with ashen blonde and black hair that either fell straight to her waist or tumbled down her back in loose and messy curls, depending on the humidity of the ocean air. She was also in possession of the afore mentioned perfectly straight nose and sea colored eyes that sat softly in an oval face with a firm jaw and patronizing chin. She had plenty of other physical traits to talk about, but that wouldn't be appropriate at the moment.

What would be appropriate is to mention that she was waiting on her morning meal of the day, most likely old bread and less than quality ale, not for sustenance (although she was hardly stupid enough to starve over lack of appetizing food) but because her meal bringer had been taking messages to and from the rest of the crew for her for days.

The thing that made this meal bringer special was two things: one, he could read. Two, since Carrigan had run amuck on the ship for all of her life they knew each other well enough to have established loyalty. You know, that special sort of loyalty that can get a girl being held in a ship's brig elected as its captain?

As she waited Carrigan read and reread the letter that the crew had sent to her the previous night.

'What's in it for us?'

Was all it said. It gave her hope, but also caused a great deal of nervousness, because even though she had known many of the pirates on board the ship for years she knew many were either too superstitious or to sexist to sail under the command of a woman, which meant many would want to part company at the nearest port if the voting swayed in her favor. So as she understood the question it was, 'What was she willing to do for those that would leave, even after voting her in? What could she do for them?'

While she thought on the matter she heard the sounds of soft soled boots scraping softly against the wooden planks that made up the ship's floor.

"Liam?" She called. She knew it was Liam, of course. The man had a bad knee, it caused one foot step to sound much heavier than the other. It was something she had noted years ago, as a girl hiding from her keeper. A one sided game that Liam had never much cared for.