Getting down from the ladder and racing around to find another escape, David found a part of the boat that had been damaged before and had been patched up.

If he could just somehow open it back up, he might be able to get out of here!

Using his slightly puny strength, considering that he hadn’t been eating well and his legs still felt heavy, David had troubles opening the patch on inside of the boat. Normally a patch in the boat that was this well fixed up was a good thing, just not today!

He picked up some useless looking tool and used that, to finally see a change and bang!

Water started to seep in through the once again opened hole! But the problem was, the hole was still not big enough…

It seemed that the wood had gotten bad, and that was why that very spot gave in. Perhaps some worker had not done his job properly?

Nonetheless the initial hole wasn’t that big but…The wood that had been covered was still somewhat soft…He could try just punching it…Was there really anything else he could do?

Putting his shirt around his fist, he punched at the side, to make the hole bigger and in no time, he was rushing to escape a small hole that gave him some gashes as he went through.

Coming up for air, David tried to calm himself to that fact that he was now having to swim when he wasn’t the best of swimmers.

He could swim, he just wasn’t used to it at all! It was worse because he had never tried to swim at night-time either!

What if an animal was here! What if a shark comes to eat him!?

Before he could worry too much about his swimming performance though he went to look up at the ship, only to find the captain fighting with another.

As David put his wet shirt back on, cringing to the few wood chips now in his skin, he heard some things that were going on above him.

“When are you going to realize, little missy, that you will never get the better of me!? Don’t think that you can just take my ship and think I’d let you!”

“Your ship is not what I want, old timer.”

It was a female’s voice…

David stayed on the surface of the water just watching two people fight on the boat with their swords.

“Oh, then what do you want!? Another lesson on how to be a good wife!?”

The woman fighting the captain used her sword, then moved her hand in a way to punch him straight after and the captain stammered backwards.

“You! It’s your turn to learn a lesson!”

David frowned to the woman’s words and was completely confused. Weren’t they pirates? Why would they want this guy for?

“Oh, little missy, don’t you think you’ve got the wrong idea? You’re just a little woman!”

David watched on as the ‘little missy’ fought back to the captain and found her holding her own quite nicely, at least for now.

“Don’t call me…” As she continued, she even headbutted the captain, “Little Missy!”

The captain took a moment to regain himself but after that it seemed he become a lot more serious as he suddenly fought back quickly and quite fast!

“Captain!”

Uh?

David got confused for a second as he saw someone that he didn’t know yell out captain…Oh, was she the other captain then?

“Dammit, don’t do something stupid!”

David frowned as he found her losing ground and then she having no choice but to get up on the edge of the boat. She fought well, yes, but the man was bigger, faster and hit harder than she did, and she was not gaining any ground anymore!

“You’re going down!” She yelled, almost like she was on top of the world, but really, she was on the losing end!

“Not today!” The man stated and then pushed her, not caring about etiquette at all while doing so, almost like he was giving back what she had done to him. “Now get off my boat!”

With that he swung his sword at her, and David watched as she fell off the boat while avoiding the sword! Truly, David wasn’t surprised at her falling with so much happening to her! But…If she hadn’t had hit part of the boat when falling, she probably would have been alright…It looked like such a dangerous fall that even David worried for her!

“Captain!”

David didn’t watch what was going on top of the boat but instead made his way over to the woman that fell off the boat.

He wished he was faster, as he could see that she was slowly going under water.

“Dammit!” David said, as he pushed his heavy legs faster and put his arms into motion but not even sure how to go much faster…

“Where’d she go?”

“Get them! Kill em all, stupid pirates!”

Pirates?

David didn’t think much more about the yelling as he took up the woman and turned her around.

It’s her!

That woman with the bird tattoo! It’s…He had called her the feminine core, or something like that…That’s how he had felt about her when he had bumped into her…

Her hair was now all over her face, so he moved it and found that she was indeed the woman that he thought she was!

He remembers specifically asking himself if this was the type of woman that he liked back on that day he first had seen her.

She, even back then and in the brief amount of time, had come across a bit like a man.

Wearing pants and shirt, instead of that of a lady’s dress, David smirked. And she was the captain!

A part of him wanted to get to know her, wanted to ask her how she got into being a pirate. Why did she want that man?

David was so fascinated that the world had slept away for a brief amount of time while he stared at her sleeping face.

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But of course, reality sets back in and David had to do something before they both went under the water!

Grabbing onto a piece of floating debris, David pushed her onto it and was glad to have found it as his legs felt even worse now.

What should he do now?

The pirates seem to be leaving his captains ship, probably looking for their own captain…Should he stay with her?

Pirates were known as nasty, simply because of rumors going down that they plunder boats and even towns near the water. They had that many rumors following them around that it was hard to know who they really were…

Should he take the chance or go back to the same merchant boat where he might have been poisoned or…

David stopped for a moment and only now just realized that his legs might be the result of the time at the table with the captain.

It would make a lot of sense, David admitted. That was when his legs had started to feel funny…

This wasn’t good…

It seemed fair to say that going back to the merchant boat was not a good idea, but pirates? Would that be an even worse idea?

With the pirate ship obviously looking for their captain and the merchant ship sailing off but yelling out their grievances upon lost merchandise, David was running out of choices!

What do I do? David asked himself, looking around in haste.

Having had quickly gone to another bit of debris, leaving the captain on the bigger piece, David tried to swim a bit further away, so that he wouldn’t be seen by the close by pirate ship.

With him being in haste and worrying about being caught, he did not see that the captain woke to see his back. She stared at him in confusion, seeing the side of his face once. It was too dark to see anything much at all but that small little detail…

Putting a hand to her head, she winced to the pain and looked around to finally understand that she was bobbing on a piece of debris in the water. “Ah, now I’m angry!”

“There she is!”

“Captain!”

“Aye…What the hell is taken ya so long!?” She yelled. Actually, a small piece of her was glad that they still came for her instead of just leaving her like that. It wouldn’t be the first time that a pirate left another pirate behind…

Pirates weren’t really sympathetic but lately they had been like an inbetweener of what was known as ‘pirates’. They were taking merchandise, yes, they were also being sneaky and changing flags to make people think that they weren’t pirates, but she had put up a new rule.

The rule stated that they only kill if they have to. Of course, that line is thin, and a few of the pirates use that against her but she can only sigh and let them go. Some weren’t used to it and didn’t like it but she was captain at the moment and so she was the monarch!

What helped her though, was that some of them didn’t want to kill anyway. The people didn’t come to be pirates because they were all law breakers, some of them just had no where else to go. Some of them left their country because they didn’t want to be a slave. Some of them didn’t want to be a labourer on land. They all each had their own story, some were just plain nasty while others weren’t. But the reason why so many of them were there and were all able to work as one, was indeed because of this captain. Just because she looked lenient, didn’t mean that she’d be like that for everything!

No, she was like a teacher and when she got mad, they all felt like little children! In fact, one of her famous punishments was banging two heads together…Which meant she didn’t care if only one of them was a culprit! They knew that they had to be good to one another or they all might cop it!

“Sorry Captain!”

Whispers were heard from those on the boat about the captain being silly again, for it wasn’t the first time that the captain would take on something bigger than she can chew!

She did it all the time, sometimes even getting them into trouble but…This time was sort of a win…They still got some bounty, and the captain was still alive…

“Captain, I wish you wouldn’t fall over the edge of the boat like that…”

As she yanked herself over the side of the boat, having been pulled up, she glared in a particular direction, having heard what was said, “It’s a talent, don’t be jealous! Now get back to work! I wanna see the score!”

They all rushed away to bring tallies of the fight just now upon who might have been hurt, lost or killed. The booty will be opened to see what they obtained and any damages to the boat will not only be told to her but already started to be fixed…Anything that just happened needed to be given to the captain…And she wanted it yesterday!

As the last of them was now rushing away, she turned around and looked in the direction of what she remembered had been a male figure that probably helped her just now.

Where’d he go?

***

David sighed to his predicament. He really felt like he had the worst luck lately!

Not only was he out in the sea for a while by himself but he was hungry and thirsty…And he hated the idea of any type of animal that might come to attempt to eat him up! On top of that, he still had to get wood from out of his skin!

But…The biggest problem though was his legs…They felt even worse now, almost to the point that he was having trouble moving them at all! It was getting to a point that he was losing feeling completely!

The only thing that kept him going was that he could see a shoreline! It had been there in the morning, when the sun had rose, to tell the still awake David that it had been hours since both ships had sailed away from him.

Ever since trying to hold onto a box that was a ploy, David felt like his life had fallen into a ditch! It just wasn’t fair!

What had he done to deserve such bad luck!

Once again, with all that was going on, David fell into a depressed state…

No, it was before the box, it was…It has been a while. Even before when Cid had gone missing, David had felt like his friend had not trusted him enough to let him know where he had gone!

Was he not good enough to his friends?

David took a deep breath in and tried to do some more kicking but found it troublesome…Just like everything else!

Hearing noise behind him, David stopped and became very still. Whether he knew something was coming or not he didn’t care…What more could possibly happen to him now!?

Still fearing the worst, David slowly looked behind him and found…The pirate ship…

“Hey, you!”

David turned back to face towards the shore and tried to think about what he should do.

“Oi!”

What he thought of, that seemed to matter in any circumstance, was that his legs weren’t good…So, nearly any idea was already quite terrible!

“Get him up!”

Hearing her voice, David turned once again and saw her looking at him in an angry manner.

“It’s fine, I was just…Swimming…” David stated, not sure what he was thinking.

Hearing a grunt, they continued to put down a rope. “Come up here!”

“It’s fine, I can make it to shore on my own!” David stated, turning to the front of him, and away from them.

Even he didn’t accept his own words but…All he could think of is whether it would be a good idea to be captured! Yet, there was absolutely nothing that he could do about it!

In the next second a splash took place, and he felt some water splash on his body that was above the water.

“What is it with men? Are they completely stupid or do they want to look completely stupid?”

David watched with wide eyes as the captain had been the one to jump in and mumble these words as she placed the rope around them.

Having her yank at the rope and hold him close to her, David blinked and just stayed still in shock to her being so close.

“Take us up!”

Holding onto her, now that they were moving, David was more aware now of his legs and swallowed.

It was completely out of his hands now. He can’t swim nor run away…He was now in the pirates’ hands completely!

As soon as the side of the boat was there, David wished that he could do more, but all he could do was hold the rope with one hand and hold onto her with the other. When she did indeed want to leave, she took him with and so she turned around to face him, once again angry. “Let go!”

David breathed out in defeat, this wasn’t going to go down very well…

Letting go, he sat there on the floor, dripping with water.

It was getting cold very quickly now and he hit his leg in anger. He was like a beached whale, well, perhaps he just felt like a beached whale!

“Get up!”

I’d love to get up for you honey, but I can’t, David thought.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“You can’t swim?” She asked…She really thought that he was the one that had helped her not long ago. Yet, how could he have helped her if he couldn’t even move his legs?

Having thought it was him, she had jumped off the boat with no regard to anything, just thinking that she couldn’t leave him there.

But now, seeing him not even speaking, just sitting there in…Well he was in a sorry state!

“Just leave him there then.” She said, now walking away.

He needed to fight for himself at some point, and she guessed that she was just going to help with that. Maybe…

David watched as he was now completely ignored.

Frowning to seeing about thirty people walking around and doing what they do, David didn’t know what to do himself. If he were to state anything, what would he say?

He was already useless before his legs were heavy and hardly moveable, now…Now he…What was he going to do!?

David only sat there a few minutes before he really did try to use the side of the boat to move.

He’d never not been able to use his legs before, so he had no idea how to go from where he was, to just a few steps away…

As the sun descended, the boat was getting ready for dinner, only giving David more reason to move from where he was but…

His legs didn’t seem to cooperate at all! They seemed floppy and weird. They weren’t painful, they were just, it was almost like they were in the way. Just some useless growth to his body!

With quite a number of attempts, even using his rising anger to help himself in some regard, David then stopped against the wall, not sure how to help himself anymore…

It had just been a big day…

Maybe he was just dreaming, his mind might be so gone with hunger and dehydration that he thought perhaps he’ll even wake up in his normal bed back on land and have to endure through his mother and father talking to him…

Nothing felt like it fit properly now and so maybe sleeping is an answer…Is all David thought.

David didn’t know what else to do. He couldn’t even go to the latrine!

Closing his eyes, David could only hope that tomorrow would be a better day…