I think I’m getting to the point where I’ll be able to start recording audio versions of some of my Short Scenes and this is one I really want to do an audio of.
© J.B. Norman — Published by Emona Literary Services™
As Kat recovers from her brief stint as the interim Captain of Dunstana’s crew, the veteran pirate Captain Aloysius R. Grizzlebeard recovers from his own encounter with Kat.
“Wow,” Captain Grizzlebeard’s first mate whispers to the second mate. “I’ve never seen him like this. He’s really taking this whole thing hard.”
“Well, you’d be taking it pretty hard if you got beat up by a pirate whose flag was a sparkly kitty-cat,” the second mate notes.
“We did get beat up by a pirate whose flag was a sparkly kitty-cat…”
“Not so loud!”
“Gather ’round,” the old pirate says the entire dockside tavern. “And I shall tell ye a tale!”
“We’ve talked about this, old man. You stay away from my tail,” a female Wilderling pirate shoots back.
“There it was,” Grizzlebeard begins, to no-one in particular and yet everyone once. “A ship like any other, on a day just like any other. And I thinks to meself, I think, I be Captain Aloysius Raspberry Grizzlbeard —”
“His middle name is Raspberry?” the first mate mutters.
“— and there’s nary a ship in all the seas o’ Terrace as what could match up to the Raspberry!”
“Well, I guess it makes sense why his ship is the Raspberry. That always bugged me,” the second mate says.
“But there she were,” Grizzlebeard says, his voice falling to awed, low tones and all the pirate in the tavern lean closely expectantly. “Standing on the deck, tall as the Oaks of Greengrove or the Mountains of Hrimfax. But I likes a challenge, or so I thought. Unafeard o’ her I was, and more the fool I for that.”
Grizzlebeard raises his tankard to his soothe his cracked lips and dry throat.
“In all me years, ne’er before had I faced a foe such as she,” he declares. “Fierce as the Valkyries o’ old, she were. Strong as a fiery handmaids o’ blessed Pherais herself.”
Captain Grizzlebeard hangs his head sadly.
“Yarr,” he says. “And for the first time in all me life, I ran. I ran so far away, like a flock o’ seagulls ’fore an old lady swingin’ round a broom. For I knew then and there that this Queen o’ the Sea were surely beyond even me.”
“What was her name, Captain Grizzlebeard?” one of the other pirates asks. “And what’s her ship called?”
Grizzlebeard rolls his eyes. “Well, it’s not like I had time to ask her. She were tryin’ to kill me!”
The old pirate shivers.
“I’ll ne’er forget the terrible sigh o’ her flag so long as I live. Yarr, me dreams’ll be haunted forevermore by that accursed sparkly kitty-cat.”
He clutches his tankard with trembling hands.
“And her eyes,” he mutters. “By the Powers, her eyes. Black and pitiless as the deepest depths o’ Heck, they were!”
“Heck?”the first mate repeats, blinking in surprise. “Um, Captain? We’re all pirates here, you can swear if you want.”
“Yeah, Captain!” the second mate agrees. “We love swearing, you can bet your — Ahh!I dropped my drink.”
Meanwhile, back at Darkstone Manor, Kat Darkstone suddenly sneezes.
Like, I want to record this one myself…
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