The Jolly Roger

Cat And Mouse

He swallowed another shot and decided he'd rather die than be a Creep.

Funny, said a little voice in his head. That's what just might happen.

"What the hell are you doing?" A sharp voice cut through his thoughts like a knife through butter. He looked up at Loren, who stood over him with her hands on her narrow hips, her one blue eye fixed on the end of his nose.

"I'm drinking."

"Looks like it. Looks like you're lazing around in this bar like half the no-goods around here."

Warrick smiled, charming, he hoped. " Oh, come on, Lor. I might seem like I'm lazing, but on the cellular level? I'm quite busy. "

"I'm telling your sister about this." She flipped long brown hair behind her shoulder. Warrick groaned. He loved Loren like she was a sister, but as far as sisters go she was the type that told on you "for your own good."

"Not now, Lor," He pleaded. " I really need to think."

Her expression softened. Her eye filled with some kind of understanding and maybe even a bit of sadness. She tugged at the bandana that wrapped across her forehead, covering her empty eye socket with a pink slash of color.

"I get it," She told him. " Just promise me you won't order another drink?"

"I promise."

***

Josette nearly jumped out of her skin as the sound of Carrigan's voice traveled into the galley, where she and the rest of the crew were eating breakfast. She had no idea of it's origin, be it the Captain's Cabin or even the brig, Carrigan's voice had a way of finding you all over the ship. Once she had heard the Captain call for a sailor from across the deck (a sailor Joey herself had been trying to stir from a drunken stupor minutes before) And he had jumped up like he had never been down, and rushed like Hermes to Carrigan's side.

However; in the week they had spent at sea and now in the almost week they had spent in port, Carrigan's voice throwing wasn't the strangest thing Joey had seen by far and, if asked, she probably couldn't tell you what the strangest thing actually was.

There was Freddie 'Darkeye' with his frightening red colored eyes, a trait Joey knew wasn't actually from all the liquor he consumed. His dog is cute though, she thought as she fed Scout some scraps from her plate. The old basset hound was always eating, but she couldn't resist his soulful dog eyes.

Gully, yet another strange thing, smirked at her from across the table. Unlike Joey, Seagull, or Gully ( As Carrigan called him) wouldn't share his scraps. Not out of selfishness, Joey had decided, but probably because scraps was all he'd been fed in all his thirteen years of life and, even though he was well fed now, he probably wasn't quite willing to give them up yet. Carrigan had found the silver haired youth in the same port Joey had grown up in, but Joey couldn't remember ever seeing the boy in all her life.

Gully had known her though and they had made fast friends, Quartermaster and cabin boy. She had also made fast friends with Sayida and Cooper. The two other girls were fiery and stubborn, a trait Joey fancied all three of them shared, and that was were the similarities ended. Sayida was a pretty, slender girl, with red hair and green eyes,and caramel colored skin that brought Spain to the forefront of Joey's mind. She was just a hair taller that Carrigan at five feet and five inches and she was rarely seen without her little ferret, Jack, curled neatly around her neck.

Cooper was just a hair shorter than Carrigan at five feet and two inches, with hair so blonde in was practically white and eyes the color of a sunset. She was usually below deck with Freddie, who served as the ship's carpenter, making barrels or mending paneling along the ship's hull. When she wasn't working she was collecting gull feathers from off the deck, to be braided into her hair later. A weird habit, Joey thought as she cleared her plate from the table. But I've seen weirder.