piratejournal | voice (accidental)

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voice (accidental)

[Have a gruff, slightly tuneless and also heavily inebriated voice serenade you suddenly from the journal.]

Fifteen men on a dead man's chest.
Yo, ho ho and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the rest,
yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
The mate was fixed by the bosun's pike,
The bosun brained with a marlinspike,
And cookey's throat was marked belike,
It had been gripped by fingers ten;
And there they lay, all good dead men
Like break o'day in a boozing ken
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum...

[There is more to the song, but it becomes muffled as the journal falls away from Gibb's hand momentarily while he takes up another bottle of rum and begins to swill it down.]

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[Another voice, feminine-soft and sensual with an undercoat of steel, joins in the song, though it starts at a later verse:]

More was seen through a sternlight screen—
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
Chartings undoubt where a woman had been!
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
'Twas a flimsy shift on a bunker cot,
With a dirk slit sheer through the bosom spot
And the lace stiff dry in a purplish blot,
Oh was she wench or some shudderin' maid
That dared the knife and took the blade!
By God! she had stuff for a plucky jade—
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

Fifteen men on a dead man's chest—
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the rest—
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
We wrapped 'em all in a mains'l tight,
With twice ten turns of a hawser's bight,
And we heaved 'em over and out of sight—
With a Yo-Heave-Ho! and a fare-you-well!
And a sudden plunge in the sullen swell
Ten fathoms deep on the road to hell!
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

Strange how song and language has a way of transcending our different worlds, don't you think?

...Mr. Gibbs? Are you okay?

-Knock knock, first mate.-

[She sounds somewhere between confused and perhaps just ever so slightly concerned.]

... excuse me, sir? Are... you alright?

Drunk as he is, even he can still appreciate another singer, especially one with a fine voice such as hers. However, her being a few verses ahead of him causes the song to jumble in his head, so he stops singing for the moment.]

I t'wouldnt know about no transcendin' but why wouldn't a good song reach across the heavens?

Never better! Though we migh' be a bit short rationed on rum as it were.

[The singing stops as there is a scuffling sound as if he were trying to pick himself up off the floor, followed by the clink of glass on glass. Then there is a soft grunt s Gibbs gives up on the effort to stand.]

Who be disturbing a man at his repast?

[Gibbs mumbles to himself as he tosses aside an empty bottle. The sound of it thudding against the hold of the ship can be heard over the journal.]

No, the rum is almost gone. We need to make port soon to remedy this matter.

Edited 2013-12-04 07:19 (UTC)

So is that what you've been doing the last several days? Just a repast? -Her voice doesn't have contempt so much as disappointment in it. Like a mother scolding her son.-

[Robin giggles.]

How would you feel if you wrote it, and someone from another world gives the credit to someone else?

Now is a repast. A'fore that was drinkin' with a purpose.

[He can hear that tone in her voice. Its something he was sort of used to coming from officers and fellow sailors before he jumped ship for Tortuga all those years ago.

[Another voice, this one younger-sounding, joins Gibbs in his singing. He doesn't know much of the song, and some of the words aren't exactly the same, so that's probably not very helpful.]

Fifteen men of 'em good and true
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
There was chest on chest of Valuan gold
With a ton of plate in the middle hold
And the cabins riot of stuff untold

[And then his singing turns into laughter instead.]

Sorry, I don't know all the words...

I'm a bit underaged, so you can drink my rations.

[Gibbs frowns as he tries to sort through the song that is rather befuddled in his head. He doesn't remember the verses saying anything about Valuan... but since his brain is more or less picked right now, he shrugs it off.]

It be alright Before long you'll be knowing the verses if you stay at sea a pirate long enough. Though what you do know seems a mite off...

[That gives him pause, but as far as he can recall the song itself had been around as long as he was sailing. It was just one of those things as constant as the wind and tide.]

Was never my reckoning that someone penned this. I though t'was one o' those things that sprang up out at sea like most good shanties do.

[That explains so much, and now her tone is considerably less less worried and a touch more amused.]

That sounds like quite the dire situation, sir.

[Don't worry, he has as well as most of the rest of the crew's as well.]

Even th' powder monkeys aboard a ship o' the line get one fourth a rationing to that of a man. You be old enough lad. But I think he rum is almost gone.

That's just as well, I'm not seventeen quite yet so I shouldn't drink anything too strong-not that anyone back home would know, I suppose.

[His world's closest equivalent to Spain is a country called Valua. Hence, Valuan gold.]

Well, I should know the whole thing backwards and forwards by the time I'm done being a pirate, then. I've got years and years ahead of me.

...Eh? Where'd I mess up?

Indeed. We should head for Tortuga immediately... Soon as I discover where Tortuga be. [There is the sound of paper crackling and being shuffled with him muttering under his breath.] Soon as I find us a map to take us there....

Moat pirates don't go around calling themselves as such, makes for an easy mark for the hangman's noose. Then again, we be marked as pirates here no matter if it be true or not.

[Gibbs stops talking long enough to take a swig of his quickly dwindling rum supply. Also buying himself some time to recollect the song.]

Shouldn't be spanish gold an' not Valuan? Or be you from yet another place I not be knowing of?

[She REALLY should say something, because even if it's sort of funny how oblivious he appears to be... well, she's a knight. Honesty is sort of important and all.]

My apologies sir, but I think you may have had a little too much rum. I'm not on your ship. ... um, I'm not sure where Tortuga is either.

The lads be no older than fourteen themselves, and some even younger. Especially aboard a pirate crew. When we make port next I'll buy you a round.

I don't mind if anyone thinks I am or not. I don't want people to think that I'm the wrong kind, is all.

[Apparently this world doesn't distinguish between 'good' and 'bad' pirates, how disappointing.]

What's Spanish?

[There is never enough rum, but in this case, since he pretty much has drained his ship stores by himself, it just might have been a touch too much.]

Forgive my presumpting, I thought you to be one o' me crew given the number of kids and ladies that seem to be sailing her.

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