200 Yabs Across The Sea

200 Yabs Across The Sea

"So... what're you suggestin', sir?"

A boy barely seventeen cycles of age scratches his head as the gulls caw and squawk above him.

"I'm saying that you could be rich, young man! Travel the high seas!"

Amidst a hustle and bustle unusual to the small harbor the boy resided near, the laugh of a middle-aged man with a dark blue overcoat, stained white tunic and a black tricorn hat resonated over the creaking of a large boat. With a wink, his hand reached into one of his many coat pockets and pulled out some tempting gold coins. This was the man who was talking to the boy, and unmistakably the boy knew that he was a persuasive man of great stature.

Despite this, the boy still hesitated; he took the coins but kept his expression of skepticism all the same. "We have gold here, plenty of gold."

"Yes, I know that for a fact. But how much of that gold or diamond is for you? Would you rather work in the mines for some pity emerald wage, or would you rather live free with my crew and build here a palace later?"

"Um..."

The young man fidgeted in place. For a stranger coming from the biggest and curviest wooden boat the boy had ever seen, he sure seemed to have a point. Actually, he seemed to know a lot about this place...

"Besides, if you only had a dirt hut and a stick, how would you deal with all the black people that steal everything?"

The boy gave a blank stare.

"You know, the eh... en..."

"The Andermen?"

"Yes, that's right!"

"That's just a myth."

Silence was in the air for a somewhat uncomfortable moment.

"Not the point! What I'm saying is this: the Saffron Corporation needs a new crewmate to help man my ship, and I think you'd be a great hand on board. I can promise you this: if you aren't enjoying the sailing life after you join, you can leave the ship in a few years with your cut of the gold and do whatever it is you block people do."

The younger man frowned at that last remark, but pushed it out of his mind. He had to admit, the idea of having a luxurious palace was a very appealing one. And it was telling that the captain had handed him some gold coins without a second thought about it. Surely, a couple cycles of hauling cargo or whatever this captain's crew did wouldn't hurt him? Who knows when the next opportunity for riches would come along...

"I think I'll join you, sir."

Just like that, a beaming smile crossed the man's face. "Excellent choice, good man! Hahahah! As your captain, you're officially part of my crew now! Let's get you ready to be a sailor, eh... what's your name?"

"It's PotatoFace7, captain!" The captain blinked. "Say again?"

"PotatoFace7."

The captain was quiet for a bit. "Alright, Pot, just meet me by that blue warehouse over there when you've got things in order. Do what you need to do."

PotatoFace7 saluted. "Yes, captain!"

One change of clothes and tearful goodbye between father, mother, and son later, Pot was right by the windowed blue warehouse. Here he was, ready to live the sailor's life. The captain greeted him, went inside the building, sat by a square wooden table and almost immediately pulled out some parchment with small text on it.

"Just put your name above the lines, sailor."

Pot squinted. What exactly was... nevermind. It probably wasn't important. After some strokes of the pen, the captain rolled up the paper and slapped his official new crewman on the back.

"I'm Captain Rits, young man! Follow my orders, and we'll all have a good time!"

The younger lad cracked a grin; the captain straightened up. "Right! Let's get you aboard the Menhaira, sailor! They should've finished loading the goods by now."

Pot took in the sight of the vessel as he and Captain Rits went aboard. It was a rather large and wide boat constructed of oak planks, no less than 20 blocks long. Immediately, his attention was drawn to the mast; it was about as tall as the ship was long, and a singular large crimson sail was furled upon its spar.

As the wood creaked below his feet, he noticed the deck dip from the gunwhales to nearer the water; at its lowest point he saw the ship's cargo: several perfectly cubic wooden crates hauled aboard, ready to be shipped to its destination. Around them, six men inspected the exterior and placement of the boxes before standing at attention towards their captain, their eyes glancing at the new hire.

"Gentlemen!" The captain's merry voice boomed as he put a burly hand on Pot's shoulder. "We've got ourselves a new sailor!"

The responses of the crew varied - one man laughed, another whooped; the third man seemed to be on the brink of tears while the fourth man stumbled on a plank as held his hand out to shake Pot's - that is, if he wasn't facing the entirely wrong direction.

As for the last two men, Pot quickly noticed something about them. Both of them seemed to be in tune with each other, both looked very similar to each other, and both were visually inspecting the boy up and down in silence. Was something wrong...?

"You usually don't recruit people from the Yubeelands, cap'n. Never mind a guy who looks so young." One of the two near-identical men went up to the captain and the boy, getting a closer look at the new sailor. "You sure you want him on board?"

Pot decided to speak up first before his captain could: "I can handle it!" The captain spoke after: "He's bound by contract to handle it!"

Unable to find a response to that, the man simply decided to extend his hand, promptly shaking it with Pot's. "Name's Kashi, the first mate. Unless the cap'n says otherwise, you're to do what I tell ya to do. Got it?"

"Yes, sir!"

First Mate Kashi motioned towards the rest of the crew, who had taken their attention off the recruit and begun to prepare the ship for leaving port. Despite their raggedy appearance, the group worked rather swiftly as they secured the cargo with straps and a tarp. "You'll meet the rest of the crew as they talk to ya."

Pot looked on in a sort of trance, caught by the coordination of the ship's men.

"Hey!"

The resounding shout broke Pot out of his stupor. First Mate Kashi was looking at the boy from the Yubeelands, and he wasn't exactly jolly anymore.

"That doesn't mean you can just stand there! Go help your crewmates! They'll tell ya what to do."

And from that point on, Pot began learning how to become a traveller of the seas.

Within the hour, the ship had left port and begun to sail towards the west - "on the leg back", as Captain Rits put it. Now, as the ship was underway and all the tasks to do had been done, Pot found himself sitting by the rest of the crew save Captain Rits and First Mate Kashi, who were at the helm.

"I don't care what your name is, I'm calling you Blockhead!"

The unamused look on Pot's face didn't stop the rugged man with disheveled short hair in front of him from laughing hysterically.

"And you're... Bush? That's what everybody else here called you."

"Yeah, that's Bush. Don't mind him laughing like that, he can't help it."

It wasn't Bush who replied, but rather the man next to him - the one that looked quite a lot like First Mate Kashi. "The name's Tahu. You've probably already guessed this, but I'm Kashi's brother. Basically, I'm the one to keep everyone here in line when the captain and first mate are too busy wrangling them."

Pot nodded and then looked absentmindedly at the ocean around the oaken ship. "Hey, Tahu, where exactly are we headed?"

The first mate's brother shot a quick glance at the helm and the officers manning it. "If I remember it right, we're gonna be making a few stops on the southern continent first."

"Hey, what's with that look, buddy?" Now another man spoke to a suddenly quite pale Pot, his eyebrow raised yet heartedly grinning.

The southern continent was not a topic that came up often in conversations, at least not where Pot was born and raised. The stories, rumors and legends surrounding the land, however, were never good ones. Never good ones.

"Ah, don't be scared! They're... interesting people, but they ain't all bad! Some of us even come from it, even myself! Plus... they're really, really rich."

"What made them so rich?"

"...Let's not talk about that. Anywho, the name's Milur! Cool to meet you, Pot!" Without any warning or grace, Milur shot out his hand towards Pot's and grabbed it, shaking it perhaps a bit too strongly before releasing it.

"Thank you...?" The boy from the Yubeelands didn't know how to react to all this. These people were strange, that's for sure. That's when his eye caught onto the man furthest to his right, who was currently bawling his eyes out.

"Uwooooo! Nu crumano cuhni no hav!"

"That's Kiiokyo. He doesn't speak much actual English." Tahu, who was failing to do a very good job at pretending he was comfortable, spoke up. "We've gotten used to him and if he actually says something important, we can translate."

"Brati port cuhni no haz! Bert correxun nid, uwo..."

"Shut up."

That left only one among the bunch that didn't introduce himself, and curiously, he didn't seem to want to. The only thing that could be heard for a few seconds were the crashing of the boat along the waves and the sail in the wind. Finally, Milur broke the quiet.

"That's Snakeboot! Say hi, you old bastard."

"Hello."

To Pot's surprise, Snakeboot's voice barely made it to his ears. The man himself certainly was old, perhaps even the oldest out of everyone, but he was no elder nor did he look weak. Such a voice was unfitting. Was something the matter?

"Hahahaha! I'll tell ya what's the deal, Blockhead!" Bush looked to Pot, then to Snakeboot. "His fuel's run out! You don't need a goddess or two in your head to find that out!"

While Pot was wondering just how in Mahrin's name Bush knew what he was gonna ask, the strange man himself looked over to Milur. "Redhair, you tool! I saw what you smuggled aboard!"

"Please don't get my hopes up..." It was Snakeboot who piped in now, his voice noticeably growing a bit louder and despite his words, more optimistic. Bush only laughed some more. "Put on the show for Blockhead over here!"

"With damn pleasure!"

Milur's voice seemed to rival the intensity of a giant, even earning a glare from the first mate at the helm, of which Milur paid absolutely no mind to. "Pot, you may think this wimp is some silly old man, but I assure you, he isn't! In fact, I call him the Magic Man of Pipooland!"

"Pot, before you ask any questions, I promise I've renounced my..."

"This isn't about your people's fetish, old coot!" Milur himself had already left his sitting position, now standing near Snakeboot and extending his arm out as if the old man were a museum exhibit. "This is about your magic trick!"

With comical amounts of bravado, Milur made his way to the tarp and dug under it for a bit, making sure everyone could see what he was doing. A few long and showy seconds later, Milur pulled out a bag - his own bag, to be precise.

"Pot, you recall Snakeboot here stumbling over the planks when you went aboard, yeah?"

Tahu was the first one to put two and two together, as indicated by a massive scowl growing on his face. "Do you remember what happened last time you decided to do this, Milur?!"

"Oh calm down, big boy! You know you love to see this too, don't go pretending you're your big brother now!" Milur's obnoxious yet endearing grin could probably be spotted from land as he slowly reached into his bag. "Watch and be amazed, Pot, at the transformation of the man before you!" And without further ado, Milur grabbed onto an object and lifted it out of the bag - a bottle of cider, produced straight from Pot's port.

Pot could only watch in astonishment as Snakeboot's eyes immediately lightened and even burned. Without hesitation, the bottle was grabbed out of Milur's hands and in an impressive feat of strength, Snakeboot pulled off the cork with his bare hands. Then, he chugged. And chugged. Within seconds, the entire bottle was downed.

"And just like that, a magical transformation has been achieved! The man had five bottles of alcohol before we left port and yet was sober within two hours! Now he thirsts for more!"

Snakeboot burped as he proceeded to throw the bottle overboard with no care in the world. "Milur, you rapacious cunt, I know you've got more in there!"

"Damn right!" Milur proceeded to indeed produce a second bottle of cider from his bag, which Snakeboot once again finished in very little time.

Just like that, the man before Pot and the crew had radically changed. To Pot, it was as if the man had been taken over by a very alcoholic devil. Perhaps that was not far from the truth. Thinking about it, however, was not on the mind of anybody as they all watched Snakeboot chug down bottle after bottle from Milur's bag.

"Hey, captain," Snakeboot bellowed to the helm, "you think it's time to sing?" Captain Rits and First Mate Kashi finally noticed what the crew had been doing; Kashi buried his face in his hands but Captain Rits had much mirth. "Tell ya what I think, Snakeboot! Aren't we in an idol company?"

"That's correct, cap!"

"And don't idols sing?"

"Spot on for a second time, cap!"

"Then I think we should start singing a few songs about our idols! How about it, men of the Menhaira?"

Loud cheers erupted on the deck as Pot shifted in place. Him, sing? How? What were they even gonna sing?

Snakeboot directed his attention towards Pot. "You're new to this, lad, so I'll tell you how it works! I sing some lyrics, then the whole crew sings 'em together! We call it an idol chanty! Ready, everybody?"

After many variations of an affirmative statement and one excited "uwooooo", Snakeboot begun a very special chanty indeed.

♪ ♪ ♪ "O I saw Miu Fujiwa's round ass in the mornin'," "Her blue plaid skirt's in a wind that's blowin," "She knows I'm lookin' and she's grinnin', 'come over'", "'Gimme a reason I should bend over!'"

"Weeellllll, we think your body's worthy of a crown," "We wanna have something that won't end with a frown," "We ask you kindly to let us go to town," "Pull, pull, those panties down!" ♪ ♪ ♪

By the end of the first stanza of singing Pot's face was as red as a beet. This was crude! This was vulgar! There's no way he could sing along to this! He looked around, but... everybody seemed into it - even First Mate Kashi was joining in on it?!

♪ ♪ ♪ "At noon I saw Misuki Han's thick butt on a hill," "My eyes just kept starin' until," "Her face went red and her pupils went smaller," "Stop lookin' there! What about me makes you holler?"

These men had no restraint! But as Pot listened to the joyous dirty chanty, he noted how in unison everyone was. Even Kiiokyo in his funny little accent was following along! Pot thought about it all for a bit.

♪ ♪ ♪ "That evenin' I took a trip to the beach," "There was Kazuki Ahi's large round peach," "Her bikini didn't cover those cheeks at all," "'Hey, man, why's your flagpole so tall?'"

Maybe this singing wasn't just because they wanted to fuck idols. Maybe there was more to this. They were a small crew on a big boat, on a huge ocean that stretched on for as far as the eye can see. What else did they have but each other?

And with that, Pot began to sing along.

♪ ♪ ♪ "By nightfall I was all but exhausted," "But Emi Sakuya came to me in lingerie so unfaulted," "'You were so busy with the other girls in glee,'" "'What do you think about doing it with me?'"

And with those final lines, the crew, now with Pot included, cheered wildly and laughed as the Menhaira creaked and sailed on: on, on it sailed, onto the seas ahead.