fandomhigh | So You Want to Be a Pirate!, Wednesday, period two

The Danger Shop had been programmed into the deck of a classic tall ship, complete with multiple masts and sails, three different deck levels, and way, way too many ropes. There were barrels and crates aplenty for the students to use as desks, so long as they didn't mind said barrels and crates occasionally sliding around as the boat drifted along the swells.

Their teacher showed up a couple minutes late, looking ruffled and disgruntled, and — facial hair aside — not really at all like he should be leading a class called "So You Want to Be a Pirate". He was much too clean, for one, and had all his limbs. He didn't even have a pirate hat on!

"Alright, alright!" he called, as he stumbled backwards through the door. "Fine! I'm here, okay? Call off the damn moose!"

He tripped over a rope, flailed his way through a stumble, and turned to get a full look at his "classroom."

". . . Holy shit. Okay. Sure. This is definitely a thing that's happening."

Such professionalism.

He rubbed a hand over his face and blinked around at the students, then sighed and gathered himself. "Hi. Right. So. Welcome to pirate class. I guess. I'm Duke Crocker. You can call me Duke. The description for this class makes me out to be a pirate, which isn't entirely true? But I'm probably the closest you'll get who's not going to fucking kill any of you, so sure. Why not."

Yeah, he was off to a great start here.

"Um. Okay. So the weirdly gossipy radio station you all have around here makes it sound like introductions are the thing to do the first week, and considering I just got bullied in here by a moose, it's safe to assume I don't have a lesson plan. So introductions it is. Let's go with name, sailing experience, and . . . favorite historical or fictional pirate? Sure. Yeah. That's a plan. I'll . . . go first? I already told you I'm Duke. I grew up in a harbor town, so I've been on boats my whole life, though — not quite ones like this one." He was going to have to look up how to run a damn tall ship, wasn't he. "And as for favorite pirates, I gotta go with Ching Shih. She was a Chinese pirate from the 18th century. Born in poverty, worked as a prostitute, and ended up commanding eighty thousand other pirates in her prime, which is a hell of a success story. They say her first rule of conduct was that anyone giving any orders that didn't come direct from her got beheaded on the spot. Woman did not like insubordination." A beat. "Seriously, you all, pirates will fucking kill you, please don't take to the seas expecting loveable drunks who sing sea shanties. Like, they probably will also get drunk and sing. But, you know. Also there's murder."

He let that hang in the air for a moment, then clapped his hands and pointed to one of the students. "Okay. Now you. Name, sailing experience, favorite pirate. Go."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Wouldn't they both be surprised to find copies in either Fandom's library or possibly the bookstore in town.

On the other hand, importing books from other worlds that no one else has read? CHOICE.

"Oh you should," Elisabeth assured him. "I cried buckets when Omoira's heart-sister, Nem, was transformed into a tree by a curse at the end of the last book. I can't wait to find out how she fixes it. And how she's going to outmaneuver the blockade set up by the White Forest Trading Company to starve the citizens of Oak Harbor into submission."

Duke would be so into cornering the market on book smuggling.

"Hey, hey, spoilers!" Duke did not look too terribly concerned about spoilers, no. "You gotta let me read some of that for myself, kid!"

Elisbeth clapped a hand over her mouth and nodded.

"I have the first one," she said, spreading her fingers just enough so she could speak. "I can bring it next week?"

He pressed his hands together over his chest and bowed a little. "Very much appreciated. I'll see if I've got anything on the Cape Rouge I can return the favor with." A pause. ". . . I don't suppose you read Russian?"

"Rushing?" Elisabeth asked, confused. "Like, fast?"

Duke clicked his tongue. "So. That'd be a 'no', then." Though how she'd never even heard of Russian. . . .

"Russian's a language. From -- I guess my version of Earth." He'd get used to having to phrase things that way eventually, right? "Lots of really epic novels have been written in it, but there've been plenty in English, too."

Oh crap. Was her book even going to be in written recognizable English?

If he glanced down at her notes, he'd see she was taking notes in perfectly legible -if slightly messy - English. Granted, with a quill and ink and parchment (and, if asked, she'd say she was writing in Modern Austermeerish), but the text itself was fine.

"Is English the language we're speaking right now?" she checked.

". . . Yes, it is. Um. What language would you say it was?"

"Austermeerish," Elisabeth supplied.

Helpfully.

Duke nodded slowly, wondering if there was as much of a logic to that as he thought there might be. "After a place called 'Austermeer', I'm guessing? Don't suppose that's an island nation?"

"No?" Elisabeth said, with a little headshake. "It's landlocked."

Well. So much for that theory.

"Huh. Alright, never mind. Sounded. . . ." Like it should just be a renamed England. ". . . islandy."

"We have a big lake?" Elisabeth offered, trying to be helpful.

"Inland sea big?" Duke checked. "Because otherwise, it's a nice try, but not quite the same thing."

"Nooooo," Elisabeth admitted. "Just regular big lake big, I suppose."

She hadn't ever seen that, either.

"Well. Just makes this school even more of an adventure for you, doesn't it."

"I don't think I looked away from the ocean for the whole trip across that long bridge," Elisabeth admitted. "I might not even have blinked!"

"Which long bridge now?"

Duke had come to the island from exactly the opposite direction, and hadn't paid a whole lot of attention to the causeway.

"There's a long bridge that connects the island to the mainland," Elisabeth said, who didn't know the word for causeway anyway. "I was reading and then the noise of the wheels over the cobblestones changed, so I looked out the window and saw the sea."

"And the road on the other end is cobblestoned," Duke said.

He could have sworn the island was near Baltimore.

"Of course!" Elisabeth said. "What else would the road be made of?"

"Asphalt, usually." Duke shrugged. "Sometimes concrete. Gravel. Dirt. . . ."

There were plenty of things to make roads out of.

"This was a major thoroughfare, a dirt road would only turn into a mire in the rain and snow. And gravel isn't much better, especially for horses," Elisabeth said thoughtfully. "Asphalt?"

“Horses?” Duke asked in return. He was actually pretty sure he knew what this girl’s deal was, and he’d relent again in a minute, but seriously, could he not have ONE conversation that didn’t are his head hurt?

"Well, and a carriage," Elisabeth said, because the answer was no. "It was far too far to walk."

Re: Introduce yourselves

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