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dethoratsPrompt: Stumbling Darkness
Pairing: Shanks and Ben
Rating: G
Word Count: 437
The world was water. Water and roaring noise and confusion caught up in a lurching, shaking, belly-dropping ride like being in the inside of a snowglobe in a small child’s hands. Nothing much could be ever be considered set in stone on the Grand Line but one of the few truisms was that the weather was impossible to predict. In ten minutes the sky had gone from a pale crystalline blue streaked with the faintest brush of sunset to a black darker than true night. Even years of experience could do little against such a rapid reversal of fortune. Jaws set, orders bellowed, sails furled, there was nothing more to be done except to ride out the worst of it and, if one was of a religious or superstitious persuasion, pray.
The captain stood at the wheel with the helmsman and two more of the crew to help wrestle control of the rudder. His eyes beneath the the drenched curtain of his hair were hard and determined whenever they caught in the weak flicker of the hurricane lantern but it was his voice, as calm and sure as his sea legs on the pitching deck, that kept the men at their work and the fear to a minimum. Wood creaked and then slammed, the hatch caught by the wind as a dripping figure climbed up from the bowels of the ship. The tall man staggered for a moment, found his footing as he wrestled the small door back into place.
Paying no mind to the stinging barrage of rain and flying salt spray, the first mate wove his way across the heaving slippery plain of the deck to report. The bilge had been overwhelmed after the first sweeping walls of water had crashed over the ship but the problem was more or less fixed for the moment. Groaning, the great dragon-prowed craft climbed another wave and then fell for a few precious seconds, landing with a jarring splash back in the water.
The first mate stumbled, caught without a handhold as the ship returned to her element, and was blinded for a moment when soggy blackness whipped across his eyes. When he could see again, it was to look down into sharp white teeth bared in a grin. The captain clapped him on the back, solid as a rock even though the action meant he had given up his lone grip on one of the guide ropes. Around them, the gale was wild and fierce, fighting the sea with the ship caught in the middle, but in that instant the captain was the eye of the storm.
Title: House Call
Rating: G
Pairing: Shanks and Ben
Word Count: 277
All around the sounds of chaos – gun shots and screams and splintering wood and the harsh ringing of steel on steel – reigned. Like ripples in a still pond after the turtle decides to leave his comfortable sunny log to chase his supper, the noise, violent confusion spread outward. Only in the middle was there calm to be found. The captain had vanished from the deck of his great black ship, disappeared below to root around inside what many considered to be the best floating wine cellar on all of the Grand Line. He was laughing and covered in dust when he finally came back to survey the continuing damage to the Navy’s barricade and his first mate gave him back the helm with a resigned sigh.
“Whatever you’re planning, do you think it’s wise to press him?”
“That old man? A little bit of teasin’ will do him good. Too much respect goes to his head.”
Two large hands reached out. One neatly plucked the filthy green-blue bottle from the captain’s sash and the other gently tussled strands brighter than the blood even then being scrubbed from the deck.
“And too much wine goes to yours.”
“Spoilsport. Didn’t you ever learn to respect your captain?”
The first mate snorted. “I’ll have some respect when I stop having to haul you out of trouble and listen to you whine about your head in the mornings.”
“Fine fine. You can come along too if ya really want. All you had to do was ask.”
The crew ignored the shoving match that developed and continued cleaning. After all, it wasn’t every day that Red Haired Shanks went to visit Whitebeard.
Pairing: Shanks and Ben
Rating: G
Word Count: 437
The world was water. Water and roaring noise and confusion caught up in a lurching, shaking, belly-dropping ride like being in the inside of a snowglobe in a small child’s hands. Nothing much could be ever be considered set in stone on the Grand Line but one of the few truisms was that the weather was impossible to predict. In ten minutes the sky had gone from a pale crystalline blue streaked with the faintest brush of sunset to a black darker than true night. Even years of experience could do little against such a rapid reversal of fortune. Jaws set, orders bellowed, sails furled, there was nothing more to be done except to ride out the worst of it and, if one was of a religious or superstitious persuasion, pray.
The captain stood at the wheel with the helmsman and two more of the crew to help wrestle control of the rudder. His eyes beneath the the drenched curtain of his hair were hard and determined whenever they caught in the weak flicker of the hurricane lantern but it was his voice, as calm and sure as his sea legs on the pitching deck, that kept the men at their work and the fear to a minimum. Wood creaked and then slammed, the hatch caught by the wind as a dripping figure climbed up from the bowels of the ship. The tall man staggered for a moment, found his footing as he wrestled the small door back into place.
Paying no mind to the stinging barrage of rain and flying salt spray, the first mate wove his way across the heaving slippery plain of the deck to report. The bilge had been overwhelmed after the first sweeping walls of water had crashed over the ship but the problem was more or less fixed for the moment. Groaning, the great dragon-prowed craft climbed another wave and then fell for a few precious seconds, landing with a jarring splash back in the water.
The first mate stumbled, caught without a handhold as the ship returned to her element, and was blinded for a moment when soggy blackness whipped across his eyes. When he could see again, it was to look down into sharp white teeth bared in a grin. The captain clapped him on the back, solid as a rock even though the action meant he had given up his lone grip on one of the guide ropes. Around them, the gale was wild and fierce, fighting the sea with the ship caught in the middle, but in that instant the captain was the eye of the storm.
Title: House Call
Rating: G
Pairing: Shanks and Ben
Word Count: 277
All around the sounds of chaos – gun shots and screams and splintering wood and the harsh ringing of steel on steel – reigned. Like ripples in a still pond after the turtle decides to leave his comfortable sunny log to chase his supper, the noise, violent confusion spread outward. Only in the middle was there calm to be found. The captain had vanished from the deck of his great black ship, disappeared below to root around inside what many considered to be the best floating wine cellar on all of the Grand Line. He was laughing and covered in dust when he finally came back to survey the continuing damage to the Navy’s barricade and his first mate gave him back the helm with a resigned sigh.
“Whatever you’re planning, do you think it’s wise to press him?”
“That old man? A little bit of teasin’ will do him good. Too much respect goes to his head.”
Two large hands reached out. One neatly plucked the filthy green-blue bottle from the captain’s sash and the other gently tussled strands brighter than the blood even then being scrubbed from the deck.
“And too much wine goes to yours.”
“Spoilsport. Didn’t you ever learn to respect your captain?”
The first mate snorted. “I’ll have some respect when I stop having to haul you out of trouble and listen to you whine about your head in the mornings.”
“Fine fine. You can come along too if ya really want. All you had to do was ask.”
The crew ignored the shoving match that developed and continued cleaning. After all, it wasn’t every day that Red Haired Shanks went to visit Whitebeard.
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Date: 2006-11-08 06:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-13 10:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-13 04:38 pm (UTC)