Pen Friends ~ Thanks to everyone who submitted their pirates! They were all were fantastic! Unfortunately, we were not able to post all of them. Our selected prompts were written by, Rebecca Henry, Tyler Hanson and Isaac Schmid this week. Please enjoy their creativity and tell us which pirate you prefer and why!

Prompt 1# Tyler Hansen, Washington. http://www.hanson-arts.com

The sky drifted and fell into the blasted, nasty sea doing nothing to help my splitting head. The liar, whoever he was, hadn’t gained my favor. I swore, once I untied the vile ropes of seasickness, I’d have his throat. Not knowing which way was right side up I rocked back and forth, clenching my poor temples. When my vision cleared, I sat up, and for the first time I laid my uneasy eyes on him.

Playing with the frayed ends of a bow line, he looked at me with a twisted smile. The taunt of his ugly face plucked the ends of my braided nerves, unravelling my unstable mind. I fell to the side and wretched. I looked back up and clenched my fist, the sinewy strands running through my forearms ached (tapped from a night and a day hanging in the open sea) as the spasms in my back and shoulders twisted my spine into a stabbing crescent.

I pointed a finger at his eye. “You think I owe you because you pulled me out!” I cried over the crashing water. “Just know, I won’t be any man’s slave. Any decent man would have done the same.”

He stood up, he himself weak and tottering amidst the plunder strewn across the deck. “I saved you because you were still alive,” and under his breath, “Which I couldn’t say for the rest of your cursed crew.”

He uncorked a bottle and threw it at me, the first fresh water I had tasted in two days. The night’s storm had wrecked many ships moving through these waters making the relative clear skies and strong wind of the day a luckless occasion. We both sat down passing sips from the bottle, my head slowly cleared.

A hairy backed sailor poked up out of the hatch on the far deck, he himself gaunt and white as a sea bird.

Peering over to me, then looking back at his captain. “Now who is this green piece of driftwood?” he said. It was obvious, he and the captain were all that was left of the crew.

“He is our new deckhand,” the captain said, “We’ll make a pirate out of him soon enough, he has no choice now.”

Though I knew he was right, everything in me wanted to rebel against it. The legend of his deceit which spread throughout the docks was what drove him to become a pirate, that much I do know. No captain would allow him on their ship, much less the governor-general. I slumped back down upon my pile of ropes and accepted my plight, this captain was my only hope at recovering the gold, much less delivering it.

As I laid motionless in the twilight, the great wheel turned and we leaned into the weight. The broken ship sailed into the dark, back toward the wreckage of my boat.

 

Prompt 2# Rebecca Henry; Kenai, Alaska. http://www.moosenaroundak.blogspot.com

Duchess of the Sea

The sky drifted and fell into the blasted, nasty sea doing nothing to help my splitting head.  The liar, whoever he was, hadn’t gained my favor. I swore, once I untied the vile ropes of seasickness, I’d have his throat. Not knowing which way was right side up I rocked back and forth, clenching my poor temples. When my vision cleared, I sat up, and for the first time I laid my uneasy eyes on him.

He still wore the same tailcoat and beaver top hat that had caused me to mistake him for a gentleman, yet now he barked orders to the grimy sailormen as the true brigand he was. His sweet words and amiable visits the past month had been for one purpose, this much I could now see. I was no longer the sole daughter and heiress to my late father the Duke of Chapman Heights, but a prisoner of pirates.

I certainly would pay any ransom price for my freedom; no amount would be too steep if it meant I would be rid of the smug sea green eyes that now turned toward me. I straightened my spine and glared back, refusing to give him any more satisfaction at seeing my pathetic seasick self. “Return me to shore, Pirate. Whatever your demands, I will pay them.”

His slick boots took slow deliberate steps toward me, cornering me against the railing of the quarterdeck. “Is that what you think?” he asked, his voice uncommonly low under the sound of the sea. To hear him clearly, I would have to lean in to his deep voice, but I refused to give him the satisfaction. “You believe I took you hostage?” He took off his hat and ran his fingers through his windswept hair. “Olivia—“

I interrupted him as he spoke my name, “Don’t be impertinent.”

“My apologies,” he bowed slightly, only to mock me. “Lady Olivia Chapman, you are mistaken. You are not a captive on my ship Crimson Crest, but a guest.”

I pushed past him to hide my surprise and confusion but my feet were still unaccustomed to the swells and drops of the ocean. My hand gripped the rigging near the mast and I spun to face him. His lies had deceived me once; I would not rely on him again. “An unwilling guest! What possessed you to think I wanted to leave my home and friends and join you on this forsaken piece of driftwood?!”

His glance was calculating, as if I was an impending sea storm; would he turn his sails and try to outrun the torrent or sail directly into the tempest? His response once again startled me. He snorted, “Your home and friends?” He shook his head. “No, that was where you were being held prisoner: all those lies and deceptions, layers of frills and makeup, their only purpose is to hide the truth about a person. Those you thought were your closest friends were truly your deadliest enemy, Oliv—Lady Chapman. I swore an oath to your father and intend to uphold it.” He straightened to his full height as he spoke, “I am setting you free.”

 

***Warning/Disclaimer: Prompt 3# contains graphic and violent content

Prompt 3# Isaac Schmid, Washington

The sky drifted and fell into the blasted, nasty sea doing nothing to help my splitting head. The liar, whoever he was, hadn’t gained my favor. I swore, once I untied the vile ropes of seasickness, I’d have his throat. Not knowing which way was right side up I rocked back and forth, clenching my poor temples. When my vision cleared, I sat up, and for the first time I laid my uneasy eyes on him.

Then terror and hopelessness descended on me as my eyes met his, black and soulless, yellowed and bloodshot. Greasy shoulder length hair soaked with blood, sweat and the thick briney air. He stood taller than most men, angular features, almost gaunt, and lean sinuous muscles menacing underneath the dark hair on this shirtless torso. His tattered brown trousers clung to his legs as he kicked the lifeless body of the woman he had just raped and murdered off the deck into the water below.

He pointed his stained saber at me. The unholy rumors are true, I thought. Here is a man bred by the underworld whose only vice was rape and only lusts were for gold and death. It was told that he amassed a fortune in a small amount of time by being fearless but he was not just fearless, he embraced death..fed off of it, which gave him an edge. He was capable and willing to commit atrocities few men had a stomach for. I vomited again as this living nightmare walked towards me, his face twisted in a snarl. My clothes now reeked of bile and I started sobbing as I realized the last thing that would touch my senses would be his rusted blade and the smell of blood and vomit.

My eyes opened wide as I felt steel on my throat. With a gutteral voice that defied semblance of anything human he growled, “Clean it up,” and motioned to the pool of blood on the deck of the ship behind him where that woman had bled out. One of his deck hands dropped a bucket and brush close by as i robotically crawled my way over and began scrubbing. This darkness was the visceral reality of what I had once romanticized and glorified. I had been so wrong.