Totally Normal (A Hobbit story)

A Blast From the Past Never Did Any Harm

"Captain, there are cannibals pretty much everywhere. We've already lost three good men." I reported.

I and a team of eleven other volunteers had been sent out to scour the main island we had landed on, and what seemed like an exciting exploration had turned into a figurative run-in with the locals and led to a literal run-out back to the shore where the rest of the crew was expectantly waiting.

The Captain, Valkan son of Gilford, blindfoldedly stared at me from across his desk. He fidgeted with the quill on his desk, and I could see the gears turning in his head. "Which three?" He finally asked.

I sighed. "Gerico, Calamia, and Kirby." I said.

"Oh," Captain Valkan said as he stood up. "Well good riddance to Kirby, honestly." He said.

"Not even a real name." I agreed.

The captain nodded while rummaging through some boxes and cases until he found a gold brace he had hidden away. "But Gerico..." He muttered.

"Sorry sir. I know you were close." I said.

He shook his head and grabbed his cutlass and boomstick-"

"Boomstick?" Thorin asked skeptically.

Does he have any idea how rude it is to interrupt a story-teller when they were fully immersed? And a pirate journey story no less. For shame Thorin. For shame.

I furrowed my eyebrows at him in frustration. "Nickname for an invention we got during an expedition to the Song Dynasty. It's like a tube you load these tiny balls into with some black powder, light a wick at the top, then BOOM." I explained. "Now shush. Anyway,

"Do you have anything I can clean my hands off with? I got dipped in seaweed water retying the lifeboats." Valkan said while holding his hands out.

I stared at him incredulously, almost speechless. "Sir, we've landed on an island surrounded by bloodthirsty cannibals, three of our crew are gone and probably being cooked and eaten right now, and you're worried about hand sanitizer?"

"My priorities are in the moment." He shrugged.

It took some time to get the crew prepared, being that most of them were so slobbering drunk, they would have agreed to do battle reenactments. Within an hour though, and after plenty of salt water dunking, thirty pissed off sailors were trudging through the jungle, retracing our steps. Because apparently to solve all your death problems, you have to go right back to where you just were, and slap in the face.

"Hey captain, just if anymore of us get taken, is your petrify gaze back on?" I asked.

Something I did not establish earlier, Captain Valkan was part Basilisk, so he looked like a dark green, human snake with legs, and he also just happened to have the ability to turn anyone who looked him in the eye to stone. He always had this black fabric over his eyes that he said he could see through, which made it so no one accidentally died on deck. I will admit though, that it took longer than I would have liked for him to figure that out, but anyway, lately his powers seemed to have weakened, as one of the cabin boys had discovered a few months before when he accidentally looked the captain in the eye when Valkan didn't have his blindfold on, and he was only knocked out for a few hours.

Valkan looked over at me and shrugged. "I do not know, but I can't afford to test it right now. Once we find the cannibals, I'll be happy to experiment." He promised.

"Alright, that's good enough for me." I said, right before my foot got caught on a stupid tropical tree root, and I tripped onto the barky, planty ground. "I swear, that is the second time I've tripped over that root today!" I yelled, frustrated as I scrambled back up. Most everyone was laughing at me, all except our kookoo crewmate, Cawa.