© J.B. Norman — Published by Emona Literary Services™
The Goblin steps onto the deck, the tails of his overcoat billowing majestically in the salty sea wind.
“I do believe we’re being boarded, Captain,” Jimena notes.
“Eh,” Dunstana says with a shrug. “We can take him.”
“Arr,” the Gobin pirate declares piratically to the point of stereotype. “It be I! The yarest and halest pirate captain what ever was — me most magnificent and splendiferous self: the famous Captain Goblinbeard!”
A thoroughly unimpressed Dunstana stares back at her new rival, for the first time in her career facing down a pirate more or less her own size.
“Your name is Goblinbeard?” she exclaims. “You don’t even have a beard!”
“It be but a nickname,” the Goblin replies. “A nom de guerre, as they say.”
“And why do you talk like that?” Dunstana asks. “You sound like a character in a play, and not even a very good one.”
“Why, it be the traditional Pirate Voice,” the Goblin answers indignantly. “I be affectin’ the affectation as what seadogs have since the dawn and beginnin’ o’ time.”
“Hey, Jimena?” Dunstana asks, looking up at her first mate. “Have you ever met a pirate who actually talks in the Pirate Voice? ‘Cause I haven’t.”
“I can’t say I have, Captain,” Jimena answers.
“Why, what sort o’ sorry excuse for pirates be you lot, if ye’ve ne’er uttered nor heard the Pirate Voice?” the Goblin asks.
“I think I should kick him,” Dunstana muses. “I’m pretty sure he’s insulting us. Aboard our own ship. What a jerk.”
“It is all rather impolite,” Jimena agrees.
“Impolite? Impolite?” Captain Goblinbeard exclaims incredulously.
“That be yer concern here? I be boarding ye, threatenin’ ye to yer very faces — and, by implication, intending to rob ye o’ yer material possessions, and ye only be certain with impropriety, ‘o all things? And ye call yerselves pirates?”
“Oh,” Jimena groans. “Oh dear. You just had to question the Captain’s credentials.”
Admittedly, she’d feel sorry for most people in the same situation, about to face the full brunt of the wrath of Hurricane Dunstana. But, well, Captain Goblinbeard hasn’t exactly done himself any favours.
“I’m going to do it, Jimena,” Dunstana decides with a nod. “I’m going to kick him.”
“As you say, Captain,” Jimena says.
“Three marks says you can’t kick him all the way back to his ship, Captain,” one of the other crew members interjects.
“Four marks to kick him out of his boots!” another offers.
“Six says he’ll do a flip,” a third says.
Dunstana strides across the deck until she’s face to face with the Goblin interloper.
“Yarr,” Captain Goblinbeard growls at Dunstana as she strides across the deck. “I be not afraid of ye, lass. I wrestle with Turbosharks for a quick mornin’ constitutional. There not be a thing on the Powers’ good earth that I be afeard of, a little pirate girl least of all.”
Dunstana responds by sticking her tongue out at him.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve, Mr. Goblinface, coming onto my ship and talking to me and my crew like that,” she declares, and boots him off the deck with a stiff kick.
The full list of my August 2022 Realmgard Short Scenes is here.
The master list of all my Short Scenes is here.
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