The Art Of The Sea

Part 7 A Bladed Dream

A flag fell to the sea, swords dropped to the deck, a ship had been defeated. Dream stands in front of a disheartened and despondent Cross, "King Dream what should we do with these pirates?", asked one of Dream's men. Dream replied, "Take them to the prison barge and question them to find out what they each know." His men nodded then they started to take the crushed pirates to the nefarious prison barge, the Necrosis, the most feared of Dream's ships. Cross tried to fight out of the restraint of the guard that was holding him. He found out it was pointless. When he looked up after the short but useless melee he saw that they are taking him in another direction, away from his men. Cross asked in an irate and riled tone to his subduers, "Hey where are you taking me?" The only reply was a grunt and the word "King."

When they boarded Dream's largest ship, obviously the Captain's ship, everything in view started to move, sails were unfurled, sailors climbed the masts, cannons were reloaded and secured, Cross saw that all the ships are going different ways each in various directions and worst of all, his precious ship Pinnace slowly being towed as bounty to another. Now as Cross was alone, shackled and without his men, a thought flooded through Cross's brain. Alone again, am I meant to be alone forever? Nightmare didn't even bother to come and help us.

~flashbacks~

The ship Pinnace is under attack by overwhelming forces of many ships and cannon, the pirates are fighting to the last but they are losing despite their skill and courage. Cross looked out the smoke filled distance to see Nightmare's ship. Hope came back to Cross's soul till he saw that the ship was leaving them. Nightmare betrayed them and left them there to suffer defeat.

(Oh that's sad let's stop this flashback cause of tears in my eyes)

Confused by what just happened, Cross got more confused when he realized that he no longer was tied and was in a jail cell. Cross got up and walked to the bars. After checking how durable they were, he tried to summon his knife but nothing happened. He tried again and again but got the same results, nothing.

"What is going on, why is my magic not working?" He asked himself. "Those bars are enchanted, there's no way you could get out of here." Cross jumped, never expecting to have an answer. He looked up to see King Dream there. With glaring eyes, Cross asked, "What do you want?!"

Dream took a deep breath and said, "Which pirate's king do you work for?... I'm looking for a certain man that killed my men and a special dear friend of mine." A deep sorrow showed on Dream and Cross felt a little bit sad for him. "Who's the man you are looking for?" Cross asked. "Error..." Dream replied. Cross looked at Dream then down to the ground to say, "Heh... sorry you got the wrong bunch of pirates, we worked with Nightmare." Dream was shocked to hear those words and started to laugh, a weak one, before he said, "I didn't find the pirates that work for Error but found the one that worked with my lost brother... how funny is that?"

"You're Nightmare's brother?" Cross yelled in disbelief. Dream nodded then said, "That was a long time ago... you see my brother wasn't always a pirate or a black messy goop... he was nice... you see we're twins. When our parents pasted away it was our parent's wish that we ruled the land together. But our people were not on board with it... they didn't like my brother because of his power. He has the ability of showing people their... fears... as well... nightmares... and no body would want to see that." ( speak for your self, I would love a fright once in a while)

"My job is to show the good in things, you know dreams heh... Well anyway, our people cooked up a plan to try and make my brother disappear for good - by... killing him... and you know that their plans didn't go as they wanted." Dream went silent and stared to shake before he continued. "I tried to stop them, I tried but they wouldn't listen... I didn't see how much pain my bother was in... Before they could get the knife close to his soul my bother snapped... That black goop burst out of him and he killed them... He killed the few people that were near him and to save the rest of the people that was in his path, I fought him... and I protected them... but I lost my bother... he believed that I betrayed him." The room got tense and Cross felt like he wanted to say something to Dream but nothing could come out of his mouth. "Sorry for that, didn't mean to make it awkward here... I will be going now and let you rest" said Dream.

He walked toward the door to open it for himself. When he was halfway across the room he stopped and asked Cross "How is my brother anyway... is he fine... is he happy being a pirates?" Cross looked at Dream seeing a sad smile on his face and replied "Yeah, I think so..." "That's good to hear." Dream answered back before shutting the door, leaving Cross to his thoughts.

————————————————————————
Author-Chan: sorry, I made this one a tear jerker but I have my reasons and why I stop there as well. I'm going to continue on this at a later time but right now let's go to Ink and Error, right after I get the tears out of my eyes!