Misadventures of the Minstrel - Away at Sea (HurriPen)

[Altamira]

A minstrel sat, under the cover of night and under the cover of his hat, strumming chords on a four-string guitar with no indication whatsoever that he would delve into a song. He had bought himself passage on this great old ship with his melodies and musical wiles, and now he rested, as still as a barrel on the deck save for his fingers, as all the other sailors went about their work; often one would bump into him, his stillness deceptive to the eye under the shroud of the dark clouds, but he played on, unperturbed.

No one was sure just how long he had been onboard; he tended to meld in with the soft browns of the woodwork, but some speculated that it was longer than agreed upon. The general attention of the sailors at large, however, was cast upon much more fascinating specimens; the exotic sea creatures of the stormy, unfamiliar waters they were entering, for one, and a girl with arms of metal and blood-red locks, for the other. She gave her name as Penina, but offered little else to the men, preferring rather to engage herself with a book or, much to the captain's distress, a investigation into the inner workings of the ship. Every once in a while, she'd surface from her rooms below deck, but it was only to check on their progress or the weather, and then she'd disappear again.

Louis had to admit that she was an interesting character, but he went no further then that; if one wished to be alone, he respected that wish. Most days he preferred being alone on deck himself. He never chanced to speak with this puzzling girl until that particular night, when the Mariner's Echo drifted off into a strangely dark bank of clouds.

All hands had come upon deck; even the minstrel himself stirred from his seat against the mast, and came to one of the sides to get a look at the patch of sea they had entered. The red-haired girl popped up at some point, her curiosity apparently aroused by their current state as well. The captain called for his men to be on alert, and the ship proceeded cautiously--but no amount of caution could prepare them for what would come.

Slowly, the ship eased through the clouds, and only the creaking of wood and breaths of humans made an audible sound. Fog permeated the deck, coating each person like thick wool; if one moved their eyes from the floor for just a moment, they lost all sense of place and were left to feel as if they were drifting in the skies. Louis reached out with a hand to ground any fellow sailors, and by accident, happened to grab Penina's metallic wrist.

He apologized immediately, and then both seemed to wander back to their own thoughts and mutter: "Something feels wrong here."

Louis had honed his senses finely in his time as a Dome teacher, and they didn't fail him then--as if it had materialized straight out of the fog, a sea captain's figure, ten times that which it would have been in life, appeared in ghostly form as the words escaped the man's lips; the spirit's eyes were aglow with green light, and his hands reached at his side, as if for a cutlass. Everyone on board blanched at the sight, frozen stock still in their boots, as the captain drew nearer and opened his mouth to speak.