Marvin and the Pirate Circus Part 2

Previously
...

You dismiss all of that, leading into a few lines of "it's a pirate's life for me." She smiles and rolls her eyes, then throws in a few 'yo-hos' before heading down.

You ask where she is going, to which she responds that she is going to bed. She then (rhetorically) asks you whose bed you though you were sleeping in anyways. Admittedly, you hadn't thought of that. You say to yourself 'so that is why it smelled so good'.

Soon after, the sun rises, and the Captain makes his way up to the crow's nest, carrying on a one-way conversation with you, explaining their bearing and the alignment of the sails and rudder-fin in relation to their destination. When he reaches the top, he sees you fast asleep in the crow's nest, as the sleep you couldn't find before abruptly snuck up on you.

Some of the crew is up and about now, so the Captain takes you back to bed while they watch the ship. They sail on, and by the time you wake up, they have already arrived in Auraburg.

Again, you wake up in a strange bed. It is strangely low to the ground, and is in a room unlike any you have seen before. The room is furnished with an abundance of shelves, desks, and tables; each of which is filled with books, maps, and pictures of ships and airmen. A notable centrepiece exists within the room, a collection of individual photos of the ship's crew. On closer scrutiny, several of the photos are of people you do not recognize, despite having been introduced to the entire crew.

You run off to ask about this anomaly. The door from that room leads out directly onto the deck. You decide that this must be the Captain's room, as only he would get such a choice cabin. From your vantage point, you can see the town of Auraburg off the left side of the ship. It quickly washes your inquiry from your mind and replaces it with thoughts of your role in the play.

A quick scan of the deck shows that most of the crew is no longer on board, at least not on deck. Your thought process is quickly interrupted by the sudden appearance of a little girl that you recognize as one of the missing crew members. She bids you hello, calling you Martin, and introduces herself as Angel.

You introduce yourself, correcting her pronunciation of your name. She apologizes, stating that she doesn't meet new people often, so it takes a while for her to learn names. She expresses her interest in you, you are new to the crew, you are very young, and her daddy did not tell her why you joined the crew.

You sheepishly avoid mentioning that you ran away from home, and instead tell her that it is because you are destined to sail the skies as a Dread Pirate of the Seven Skies.

She laughs for a second or two, then reads your expression and asks you if you are serious (she addresses you as Martin again). You answer affirmatively. She karate chops you in the forehead, then begins lecturing you on the reasons against becoming a pirate.

Parts of her lecture seem less than genuine, she misuses several words, she makes reference to years of experience with pirates, her list of possible alternate careers seems oddly effeminate (including school teacher, stewardess, and nurse), and at one point she tells you that when she was your age, she didn't want to be anything but a pirate, but has since realized the folly of her decision.

In response, you ask her how old she is. She responds that she is nine. This is very off because you are fifteen (Dimes age slowly) and therefore she has never been your age. You start to point this out to her, but she interrupts by asking if you want to see where they keep the fireworks.

This catches you off guard, and she interprets your stunned silence as a yes and pulls you by the hand with her. She takes you into the blue hallway beneath the deck, and then down another flight of stairs under a trapdoor.

The room is poorly lit and quite cold. It looks like a storehouse of some kind, as it seems loaded with baskets of flour, wheels of cheese, barrels of wine, as well as a few obscure instruments and various examples of exotic but useless looking mechanisms.

Angel activates a bauble on her hairband, and it begins glowing yellow. She leads you to a stone cupboard with copper locks and hinges and old wooden doors. She tries to open the door but it is locked. She tells you that Winston keeps his cigars in here and always leaves it unlocked, but Julie gets the fireworks and always locks it.

She then drags you away, and you ask where she is taking you now. She responds that Julie must have some fireworks if the cabinet is locked. She takes you back through the hallways, and out onto the land, to where they are setting up the Auraburg show.

Julie is setting up an enormous set of drums with the help of Pete and Roger. Near the stage lies a box with a distinctive red object poking out of it. The two of your surreptitiously make your way over and Angel begins digging her way though it. As she is doing this, she is listing off various kinds of pyrotechnics; the Red Dragon, some wandering candles, a Malichi Butterfly – she notes her disappointment at the lack of Earthshakers – several Banshees, a Crackletail, a bunch of sparklers for the kids – she hands you one and tells you it is called a Supernova -some cherry bombs, and snakes.

Having looked through the box, Angel comes out of it, only to look dishearteningly at something behind you. Following her gaze, you see an upset looking man behind you. At his side is a pleasantly thin woman in a simple cloth dress with the darkest skin you have ever seen.

In your surprise and naivety, you exclaim “Wel Atlas you're dark! What happened to you?”

This serves to disrupt the collective train of thought of the moment, and everyone – the man especially – is trying to interrupt your theories of sunburn and soot with stories of the indigenous tribes of the southern Albrink plains.

Angel takes this opportunity to sneaks few paces away, and makes a run for it after advancing a few yards. The man sees her, and starts chasing after her, shouting “Bevelle” as he goes.

This leaves you alone with the strange dark-skinned woman. You ask her candidly if you are in trouble. She responds that yes, you probably are in trouble, but not from her. From what she's heard about you, she is probably one of the few people you are not in trouble with.

She introduces herself as !loc Al'thur, a forerunner for the show and also a dancer when she performs. You respond that you are Marvin Gildan, a new performer for the company. She questions this role, as you are only here temporarily. You assure her that the Captain has assured you a role in today's production, and attempt to dispute the 'temporarily' in her question. She tells you that Tommy is probably looking for you then in the main stage, pointing to the largest of the buildings set up by the circus. You run off in the direction she indicated, shouting “thanks Lock!”, she with a mix of amusement and chagrin on her face.

Making your way over to the building, you spot several people outside the side entrance; of the three of them, two are sporting matching red uniforms. The third person is not someone you recognize, an older man with a salt and pepper stubble and an eye patch. He is dressed in simple garb with a thick fabric cloak with an overabundance of pockets. He is wearing a conic straw hat on his back, its string securely around his neck, running through a copper coin with a square hole in its centre. He has a pipe in one hand, and is gesturing furiously with the other.

Of the two uniformed men, one can be recognized as Winston the Mouth Mcvale, puffing away at one of the cigars Angel mentioned. He has a golden badge that depicts a silhouetted cello on his left arm. His beard is neatly trimmed and he has an orange bandana with a white skull and crossbones over his ponytail.

The other man looks vaguely familiar, but you don't recognize him. He has a similar gold badge, except that his has a violin. His hair is blonde and short. He is smoking a cigarette in his left hand and has a flask of contents unknown in his right, The three of them seem to be arguing over the best places to buy tobacco. McVale favours Meridian cigars, the older man insists on Pangaean loose tobacco and – slithering sky nymphs that's Bill; he really does clean up well – smokes the finest Olivian leaves.

You approach them and the door, excusing yourself past them. The man you don't know doesn't know you either, and stops you, telling you that this building is for theatre people only. As you begin to correct him, Winston says “back off forerunner, he's one of ours”.

The man responds “sweet Able I'm sorry – so you're the Dime everyone's talking about. The name and moniker is Wescroth 'Hijack' McKenzie 'Gaze'. Nice to meetcha.”

Your response: “Hi Jack”

And his: “Yes, well you see I'm more of a storyteller than a – wait, you just don't know what it means. Call me Gaze. You should head inside, Tommy is waiting for you.”

Inside the building it is dark, lot only by the daylight coming through a few small windows high above. There are an abundance of shelves, holding rows and rows of costumes and props. There is something unsettling about the place, and you begin calling out to find Tommy.

There are some footsteps in the distance that draw your attention, past a row of costumes. You turn quickly to see, and as you do Tommy appears behind you.

He exclaims “there you are! We've been waiting on ya,” promptly picking you up and putting you on his shoulders. As he is carrying you out of the building, he beings explaining what needs to be done prior to your performance; you're going to need some dirt and makeup on you to look the part, your outfit should be fine as is, hair might need a bit of righting up, and your knees need to be dirtier.

He brings you over to a peculiar building, the front of it appears to be a stage, open to the elements, facing a large crowd of people. On it is Angel and Jessica, singing dirty limericks of a past lover to a backdrop of (presumable) Charles Montgomery's piano. The rest of the building is a circus-style tent, though with no obvious entrances.

He takes you to a seam in the side of the tent, putting you down and ushering you in as he lifts the fabric on one side to reveal the interior.

Inside, it is less glamorous than you weer expecting. There is no floor except the grass with a few tables and mirrors standing with even fewer chairs. In one corner, paper walls divide off an area containing a rack of costumes.

Among the meager furnishings are Pete, Mary, the Captain, as well as the man who was with Lock when they caught you and Angel with the fireworks.

Tommy announces your arrival, the Captain acknowledges with a “good” and instructs Pete to get you ready. He (cap) then asks Tommy how Bill and the smokers are doing, to which he (tom) replies they they're due back any moment now. The Captain then asks after Roger, and Tommy replies that they are almost done. Pete chimes in that he helped them get the big things in place, so they shouldn't have a problem with the remainder.

While this is going on, Pete takes you by the shoulders and tells you to get on your knees, then asks you to extend your hands. Once you do so, he grabs you by the wrists and drags you several feet by them. He then lifts you back on your feet (by your hands) and asks you to shake your head.

Once done, he proceeds to tousle your hair and directs your head to various angles by the chin as he inspects it. Apparently satisfied, he turns to the Captain calling out to ask if he had heard from Killian yet.

The Captain responds in negative, but assures that Donald wouldn't let him be late for this.

Through the curtain, Angel and Jessica can be heard to a backdrop of piano. The Captain is listening intently; he (cap) calls out 'Kenneth, are you ready? They're almost done,' to which he (ken) responds with a hearty “aye aye Captain!” and makes his way to the black curtain separating them from the stage.

Tommy, from behind you, tells you that that is his cue to leave, and joins Kenneth. Tommy turns to Kenneth and says quite seriously 'keep it professional this time. If you have anything to say to Angel, tell it after the show, okay father?'

Kenneth responds “just worry about catching those knives.”

Outside, the music reaches its climax, and the audience cheers enthusiastically. Jessica's muffled voice can be heard, which Tommy and Kenneth take as a cue and they pierce the black curtain to the stage.

After a moment, Jessica and Angel come back through the curtain. Jessica sees you and looks sad for a moment, saying something to the Captain, who nods his head. He looks behind you to Pete, w ho picks you up and tells you that it is time for you to get into character.

The Captian opens a small giblet that Pete is walking you over to, Fearing the worst, you struggle, object, and question their intentions; Pete's grip is too much however, and he and the Captain force you into the small cage. You tearfully ask them why they put you in there; the Captain puts on his characteristic accent and tells you that is is because they are pirates! Never ask when you can take! Spoils for the strong and cunning! The weak shall fear us and the strong shall never catch us. Strike where and when they least expect it!

His words stop your tears in the giblet.

The Captain tells the dumbstruck Mary to go check on Killian. He then sits down and invites Jessica and Angel to join him (in his normal voice),. He asks Pete how his (cap's) hair is.

Pete gives his approval, but proceeds to make minor adjustments nonetheless. As he is working, he begins making small talk with the three of them, praising the girls' recent performance, asking about Angel's lessons (which she is decidedly unfond of), asking the Captain about sales and concessions.

They continue in this manner for a while, Pete turning to the girls' hair, outside the muffled sounds of knives hitting wood and various oohs, aahs, and cheers of the audience.

It is then that Killian enters, Mary behind him. The Captina turns to him and says 'good, just in time', The then asks if anyone has seen Roger; Killian respnds that he was dicing behind the concessions boooth. The Captain sighs and says that they can start without him if need be.

This proves unnecessary, as Rogers enters shortly afterwards, bearing his unusual smile, proclaiming that he had won 400 Arcs that morning. The Captain responds that that may be as well 400 tins compared to what this show was worth to them.

He then starts asking everyone if they have learned the new words; that he wants to mistakes like back in Eldershaw. He calls out to the tent's entrance “and that goes double for you Bill!” - to an apathetic confirmation.

A sudden burst of applause signals the end of the previous production. Everyone suddenly becomes more alerty, and even Bill enters, putting out a small cigar.

After a short time that seems much longer, Kenneth steps though the black curtain, which triggers everyone to head onstage. The Captain goes first, followed by Killian, then Mary, Roger, and Bill; Pete is last to go, picking up and bringing your cage with him as he goes.

The light from beyond the curtain is blinding; you shield your eyes as you are greeted by a hearty cheer from the crowd as you bounce around in your bars.

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That is all for now. I am almost caught up to where I have written on paper, though I can pad it out a bit with the songs and lore I have written. I have one song in particular I don't want to release until I have finished the entire story, as it outlines most of it, as well as a good deal of the backstory.

Until then,

-Colin