LIFTING OFF

The struck pirate captain reholstered his firearm. Its failing to act faced Fugger with a now regrettably unavoidable standoff between he and the knight before him, latter advancing. Lit by ever burning flames swallowing up the royal mast, he realized he had been tailed completely by his own hostage.

“We fed you, y’know,” Fugger started. “This is how you thank us?”

The brother, tank top soaked and bagged pants dripping, bun defeated with soaked hair curled all round face and neck, gripped her fists and continued striding in silence.

“Ship ain’t gonna not sink whether you beat me or not,” advised one half the contributor towards its state.

“Ok. Still’ll beat you dead,” she threatened--fairly elevated since last muffled through walls.

In yearning, Fugger’s heart leapt at the cadence of her voice in the same breath it urged its host to flee, the advancing, avenging brother intent on closing the distance between she and her kidnapper. Fugger began scooting his boots against plank backwards, mere seconds gained. He unholstered his pistol once more and flung the waterlogged weapon at the brother, she completely taken unawares and whacked unceremoniously in the nose. When the escapee’s squinted eyes recovered, she found Fugger out of sight and, spinning to the side, rediscovered her target had flung himself over the railings and into his means of escape, bags loaded and secured. Fugger fumbled to release the watercraft from its dock as the knight changed course and continued her advance. He succeeding, Fugger fell with loot and boat into the barely distinguishable waters. He took up an oar to begin the journey back when feet slammed behind, the boat thrusting Fugger and one tied treasure hurtling into the black. He gasped and dove in a desperate attempt to save his looted valuables--they eluded him to their likely sunk end.

Fugger switched tactics, trying a re-mounting of his escape--the woman atop stomped at the sudden appearing fingers, howls in her attack’s wake. Water rushing into his scabbard, the pirate produced his cutlass and swung it violently around the brother, slicing her ankles. Realizing the connection of his flail, he, hilt gripped, steadied his balance so as to not disrupt the rest of his loot and hoisted himself halfway over back into the once more plundered means of return. Water sloshed and spilled with the cutlass’ sheathing, and Fugger then seized the wounded, reunited kidnapee, his immediate thoughts no lighter than the mists surrounding. But her repeated violent struggling annoyed the exhausted and soaked pirate to such manner, his wiggle room well sapped, he decided on ejecting the woman outright. By the time she breached the plunged surface a second time, she could see nor hear but the brotherhood choking on ember.

Having whipped his arms into a frenzy his janitorial past could never compare against, Fugger sailed the boat towards the continuing disaster of his own vessel. Identifying the sinking mess proved difficult, their lighting having been ceased on the side of the navy. He referenced the blazing royal shipwreck behind to guide him as possible--at first the only source of sounds besides an intermittent wave. One direction suddenly spoke out to Fugger, plopping and thunking repeating a dogged rhythm not far forward. The brother directly entangled with meant Fugger would not have investigated had it and his ship not aligned alike. This thankfully proved to be the case, and as he continued towards the faint outline--lower than loved--the sound grew distinct. After one particular oar swing Fugger identified swimming. He froze, the boat then drifting, chilled by night wind and the thought he’d underestimated the woman’s athletic ability. So he shout:

“Restrain yourself, listen to me! Your ship is sunk but mine’ll live--so be calm and you may come.”

“Captain...!” splashed indiscriminately.

“Bell? Bellhound?” his captain called hurriedly. Fugger took up the oar once more, and the craft soon came adjacent to the struggling navigator. He reached out and took his captain’s hands bringing the ragged form of Bellhound crashing atop Fugger. He stifled a click at his newly soaked wear and shoved him off to breathe. Steady, the captain reconvened the operation of his sailboat. Bell, breathless, spat and sucked at air. It would be some strokes until he’d regained enough strength to speak.

“That true... Crap about’re ship living?”

“Yeah,” affirmed Fugger.

“Did what I could,” said Bell.

“I bet you did. Why’re you out here?” came a strained voice, Fugger’s resolve dissipating with every thrust forwards, his performances having worn him to little. Bellhound realized.

“Give it,” he demanded, his captain’s hands resisting little in releasing their tool. He crashed to the base of the boat immediately adrift in his dreams. Bellhound could only guess, rowing, what he’d experienced.

It came to be no easy task guiding the sailboat forward, its load heavy with he, Fugger, and the fat sack of spilling loot beneath a bench. Bellhound more-or-less connected together what likely his captain had planned and felt strangely overcome with a sensation of admiration. This had happened before with another, but its sole instance seemed to Bell then unrepeatable, Blackgill very recently unimpressive, the soaked snorer laying against wood--until this point--the same. These feelings, Bellhound reckoned, would be meaningless in death, and the two’s likelihood at arriving safely and un-starven to shore nil in such sailing conditions. This reminder brought his stroking speed to further intervals, sleep trailing behind.

The two pirates reunited with their ship, one unconscious and the other anxious--the latter stretching, his belongings replaced with the former’s. He dove. The wreckage before him nearly submerged whole, its upper deck blanketed with a thin layer of moonless waters. He navigated and felt his way down to the hole he witnessed bored, entering the hull. Nearly impenetrable blackness pervaded the water Bell swam. Not long, however, it became illuminated by a familiar faint green glow. He made his way towards the terminal and approached the screen with a mixture of haste and hesitation. Bell became faced against a near indecipherable opponent:

NDEITLUT PHIS HLATEH: 5%

>PIREAR

>RNMAEE

>GUPREDA

He mimicked his captain to the best of his ability.

RNAMEE OT:

QWERTYUIOP

ASDFGHJKL

ZXCVBNM

Bellhound shook his head, hair as his body demanded further of him. He dragged his fingers wildly across the screen unsure if his eyes stung from the swim or tears. What happens after, Bell wondered, his heart throbbing reducing him to the thoughts of such and alike. He shot himself straight up as if possessed, his focus forced away from the ship’s hlateh and towards his own. Gods smiling on the situation, Bellhound found a pocket of air yet filled. Inhaling chased exhales at such severity the two acts seemed to blend.

Eventually plunging, his feet kicked away as Bell drew close back to the green. He mashed his fingers in another attack until a uniquely different message appeared:

MUEEIRERQTN: 393 GOLD

He knew that word. Bellhound slung and swished open Fugger’s loot, thumbing the coins to start before figuring out what to do with the variety of junk included after. Instead of its previous incarnation, however, the artifact’s mouth morphed into a hole not entirely unlike the two through the ship. Bellhound immediately felt his boots slam up against both sides of the screen, an unmistakable suction beginning alike to the whirlpools of salty old sailor tales. Soon the contents of the bag became fodder for the maw. Insatiable, it turned next to the water in the room, its numbers meanwhile spinning wildly down. A wheel alike to the one yet sunken atop formed between Bellhound’s feet closing up the boring. He squat, knelt, and exerted the last of his reserves twisting right, falling then backwards into the puddles remaining. A pale veil of blue soon stretched itself over the wood of the hull and lower deck around him, vanishing nearly as soon as it’d arrived--as did the wet contents of the once shipwreck. In the cold colored wake, Bellhound could not ignore the immaculate design suddenly surrounding him.Rousing himself up, he peered round and found no existence of penetration. Returning to the terminal, he caught in disgust it spitting out several contents--change? A dry volume caught his attention--he brought it up in the pit of his arm and drew up to rescue Fugger, but his feet stayed strangely. Dragging into a cabin: difficult. Up the boat: possible in imagination only. But among the other spat contents came a spool of rope. And Bellhound considered an option thought very wise...

By the time he awoke, Fugger found his form sheeted not by cloth alone but a mighty wash of translucent pastels above stretched from end to end. Surrounding, visible waves brought themselves up and bled back into one another, their blue growing with time. As such passed, so did the sky’s colors--saturating, deepening into gumball hues, the warmest dominant. And the sun itself pleased the captain in his little sailboat which, he learned, served as caboose behind his fully restored plunder, Bellhound having succeeded. While Fugger would later draw on his strength to shimmy up the threaded connective tissue back onto his proper home on the water--one he would not sell, lease, or part with regardless of offer in this world--he liked the warmth. The warden would not wake him. No brotherhood gave chase nor would report he and his navigator--of this he assumed certain, the distance having crossed in the interim of his sleep still not having brought the two to ‘SHORE’.

Unbeknownst, on the complete opposite side of Fugger, at a distance fewer than he to the afternoon, a silhouette grew on the horizon of trees, mountains, and towers--drifting close.