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Ye Ol’ Marigold was the apple of Valgur’s eye. While it paled in comparison to some that stalked the Myriad Isles, it was manned by a crew of free men, and at ten years old, to Picaro, it was ripe with adventure.

The minute he came aboard, he was enthralled by every nook and cranny of the ship. He took to exploring its entirety. He found hiding places others wouldn’t guess to look. The crew tried, at first, to get Picaro to be their choreboy. Picaro worked until he got fed up, or only stuck out his tongue at them and ran away, and they could never catch him. He was able to wedge himself behind barrels, between crates, through piles of rope, eventually setting up many vantage points throughout the ship. One of his early favorites was in the rafters of the mess, watching men go to and fro through a portal to the main deck.

He scaled the rigging and climbed up the lines that anchored the main mast and secondary sails. Sometimes he walked out onto the boom, and had to hold on when it swung heavily during a turn. Picaro climbed all over the outside of the ship, along the rails, and finally up to the crow’s nest, which became his favorite perch. Shrimp, the ship’s lookout, always shooed the boy off, but that didn’t stop Picaro from trying.

He saw his first battle from way up there. Ye Ol’ Marigold overtook a small trade frigate. The sounds of battle pierced the air, and deafening booms of cannons exploded around him. It sounded like the end of the world. But eventually peace prevailed, and Ye ‘Ol Marigold was the richer. The bounty was plenty. Some jewels, fresh mead, a shipment of ore from Fine Island, and a purse full of coin.

Business was booming and the crew was merry. Picaro watched them sing drunken songs in the mess that evening, and he felt again the camaraderie he had witnessed back in Squal Parlor between captain Coldblue and his crew. It filled Picaro with a surging tremor, a bottled up energy he needed to release. He ran up to the main deck and found himself screaming calls to adventure into the headwinds. For a tenday, it was easy for any man aboard to grin.

As time wore on, that same assurance made Picaro bolder, more playful, as he would say. He started getting into things he shouldn’t have, and interrupted work on the main deck. Men chased him off, smiles turning to scowls as Picaro darted about the ship like a spry fox. He was caught once, and received a heavy hand for his troubles. But it wasn’t anything he wasn’t used to.

Even so, the crew began to grumble greatly to Valgur, wondering why they were charged to babysit the little brat. To assuage this, and begin honing the boy’s natural affinity for thieving, Valgur handed him over to Scuttle, the ship's master thief.

Scuttle was a thin, tightfaced who easily burned in the sun, lending perfectly to his preference for shadow and the art of thievery. He publicly decried his duty in front of Valgur and the crew. "What I look like, a nanny? He should be on someone's tit, not danglin’ from me jewels. Just give the boy a skipper and let the seas raise him."

The crew laughed heartily at this, thereon referring to Scuttle as the midwife, and asking him if he had nipples down there, too. So it was easy for Scuttle to resent the boy. "Listen here. I don’t care what anybody says, I’m not teaching you a lick. You ain’t taking my job. Not now, not ever. But captain says I gotta do something. So here. Take these and leave me alone.” Scuttle gave the boy some rusty old locks and a set of dull set of thieves’ tools, complete with many lengths and types of lockpick.

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To Scuttle’s dismay, Picaro picked up the art rather quickly. He spent many an afternoon picking the old locks until they weakened and finally broke. Picaro grew bored, so he sought out fresh locks, and his mischief increased. He knew enough not to steal from the crew, but instead he sometimes played tricks on them, locking some in their quarters, and on one occasion locking a crewmate in the latrine as he was cleaning it. The crew thought much of it was great fun.

That was until Picaro started unlocking personal chests and lockboxes, one time leaving the contents open by mistake. It became a game to the boy, and he didn’t think he would be caught until men grew outraged, thinking their own friends were pilfering from them.

Tempers flared. Scuttle was called to investigate. He caught Picaro red handed early one morning and hauled him up to the main deck. “Of course it was that stinking runt,” said Mord, one of the ship’s top gunners. He was a brutish oaf of a man, missing an eye. He had reddish hair and skin reddened by the sun with a wicked scar on his cheek. “Just throw him overboard, that will teach him something he shan’t forget.”

Valgur came on deck to see his men surrounding the boy. Quietly, Valgur reveled in the boy's seemingly limitless potential. He could barely wait for the day Picaro would grow to become a master thief in his own right. But, he was forced to interfere for the betterment of all.

“What’s all this then?”

“Lad’s been getting into things that don’t belong to him,” said Grit, the captain’s second. He was a short man who liked to smoke. But he was hard as nails, and loyal.

“He stole from you?” asked Valgur.

Men shifted uncomfortably, “Not exactly,” said Rancid, one of the ship’s undercrewman.

“Then that’s enough, lads. Go easy on him.”

“Can’t go easy on the boy, he’ll walk all over you. He’s gotta learn somehow. Either he learns tough or he’ll do it again,” said Mord. Those last words stung Picaro deeply as they were not the first time he had heard them. The last time was from Mister Goffrey. He shot a dark look at Mord, who returned it and spat on the deck at his feet.

Valgur strode forward, parting the ring, and yanked Picaro up by the arm. “See this lads,” said Valgur, holding up Picaro’s left hand for all to see, “Four fingers and a nub. He’s already learned. What more could ye do to him, cut another finger off? His nose? He’ll grow and he’ll learn. Won’t ye boy?

“It’s not just that,” said Silvertime, the ship’s quartermaster and navigator. “I told you. Kid’s been slowing down the rig. We can’t have him running off unattended. Someone will get hurt, and not just him. The midwife’s supposed to be nursing him, ain’t he?”

Scuttle scowled. “I ain’t watching him day and night. I gave ‘im me old thieves tools and locks as y’said captain, but I’m not playing nursery with him, that’s for damn sure.”

“So this is your fault,” said Mord, bristling as he turned on Scuttle.

Valgur began to laugh. It soon drowned out the complaints and arguments. “Boy done picked the wrong lock, did he? By it all, I’m impressed, I have to say. Only a boy and he’s bamboozled the lot a ye. Lad is a prodigy with lockpicks.” Scuttle turned green with envy and ground his teeth in his head.

“Oi, so he gets a reward then? That ain’t right, cap’n. That ain’t right a t’all,” said Mord.

“Well, it looks like something must be done,” said Valgur, turning to Picaro. “Right then, it’s time to give ye a bit a discipline. I’m puttin’ you to work in the galley. That’s an order. Keep yer thieves tools, they’re yours. I can see ye picked it up quick and I’m proud. But, there’s a time and a place for thieving. Not every lock is worth picking. Pick yer targets carefully. Remember that. But, don’t worry. You’ll get yer share for it’s all said and done,” said Valgur, winking down at him. “Til then, you’ll be cutting vegetables with Onion.”