The 13th Girl

Hydrangea Hideaway

 Genetic Brightness: How much you're actually you. 

Beau's genetic Brightness: dim.     

From ship to ship they traveled; Beau and Gren became less themselves, more pirate, followed less their plans, more the sea. Beau's butcher skills came in handy, put on cooking duty a few too many times. On a certain Captain's ship-never mind his name-these two stowaways lay at the commands of infatuation-caught amongst a star-crossed romance not yet their own...

"Indeed, this woman. So lovely, atypical, an exotic bird in a cage. I must set her free...set her free to keep her for myself. Do you all hear me?" his voice-pinched and high. He looked out binoculars, steadily following a beautiful woman lounging by the sea, her hair long and black, rolled up in an elegant bun. Meet Captain Royce: a permanent forty year old, only 45 in reality. A buffoon, rubbish pirate. As a little boy he had worked in a soup kitchen at a posh boarding school. In the midst of his duties he managed to form a handful of intense infatuations with tall stoic classy school girls. And as a grown man, the captain still had an irreversible attraction to such classy and unattainable women. Especially this one.

"Helena Boregard. The daughter of a Plantation Owner. Basically the daughter of my sworn enemy!" The entire crew stared at the woman with a white parasol, twirling it on her shoulder as she sauntered away on the docks, a lady dressed in white amidst white sails. "The plantation owner is the Captain's sworn enemy?" Beau whispered, the question almost rhetorically no. Gren shook his head, "Nah, I think he made that up-increase the drama." Beau frowned.

Another sailor, who'd been longer on the ship, chimed in, "Captain Royce once attended an auction pretending to be a buyer. The gentlemen brought their daughters, unfortunately..." The crew continued to stare.

Since their first encounter, Captain Royce had written Helena mysterious letters and they'd met a couple of times in secret. He often kept his ship near her plantation, a poor decision at the expense of the crew's welfare. The area had no treasure, no village that hadn't already been pillaged. The ship sat idle, useless to Pirates and the whole crew felt the consequences of the captain's impressionability, his childhood fantasies. The crew usually busied themselves in the local bars and brothels while the Captain set up his romantic rendezvous with Helena.

"Father, I'm going to marry Count Royce," Helana had finally gushed. But her father, despite her tantrums and pleas, remained unconvinced of Count Royce's...counthood. He met Royce, reluctantly, and became immediately convinced without a doubt Count Royce was not a respectable gentleman. "He's a pirate." An accurate conviction.

"Shame. Royce is so bad at acting," commented Beau and many others. Had he been a better liar, it would have saved them some trouble....

The Raid of Love

The music is fast

"Most pirates die on raids," began Sooki handing out large white bags to the crew of pirates standing in a line. Loot bags. Beau and Gren had never experienced a raid before, and looked quizzical at the bags. Never instructed on how to conduct a raid, they could only rely on the over-heard stories. "No one ever mentioned pillow case-bags,"

But raids didn't sound so bad. "Sounds so easy, just grab whatever you can," Zgung whispered.

Sooki overheard, "No. Absolutely not. You are given one bag and you must use that one bag wisely. If you grab little shit, grandma trinkets or fake pearls you'll regret it. You must meet the quota. Meet the quote....or die." Everyone rolled their eyes.