1 June; Stargazing

"..I do want to join, I jus' don't want t'...t' ruin your fun, or get in trouble. You saw 'im.. Mister Deverel. He didn' approve." Or atleast that was what the boy had thought, when the lieutenant turned away with but a grunt in response. Of course, he could have been wrong. Very wrong.

"wot'... wot' ye mean that it's not good 'specially for me?"

"Didn't seem that way to me - 'e only asked why you wasn't joinin' in, didn't 'e?" Terry pointed out. "You dn't wanna be all on your own on any ship - ain't right. Folks'll wonder what wrong wiv 'em - or what's wrong wiv you, which is worser."

"...But there's nothin' wrong with me." He frowned. Button made it sound so easy to rejoin the group. As if they would really not mind or think back on what he had done. But was it so simple or was he just a naive boy who thought things were like that?

He shifted a little. "...he did ask that..." Thinking back on what Deverel said and wondering if he might have misjudged him. "...You sure it ain't a problem with any of you that.... that I come back? Though i dunno if I'll ...be able to hop abouts just much....or sit.."

"C'mon," Terry said, already shifting to scramble to his feet. "You gotta show willin' yourself if you want 'em to... to want you, see. Don't see why they'd 'ave a problem wiv it - try an'... an' join in, don't boss 'em around or anyfin'."

"..Don't think I'd want to." He struggled to his feet. "... boss them around that is." He added more quietly and moved after Button. "..never." He murmured and checked himself. He could not boss anyone around, would not and should not. He looked positively humbled. "...well I'll.. follow you, but you'll see."

"You ought to at least try. Min' you, they oughta try too," Terry replied, though he had no way of making them see that. "C'mon!"

"..Comin'. But you'll let it go if they shoo me 'way." He murmured and rather lacking a great deal of confidence, scurried along after the boy. He tugged at his sleeve feeling somewhat more nervous than the first time that evening, that he had gotten on deck to sneak into joining the Tars.

"you'm jus' mad." He mumbled as well, much more quietly.

A group of the seamen ran across the deck, howling with laughter at some game of keep-away. Deverel recognized the voice and face of at least one man whose name he knew. "Oxley! Pipe down, all of you, and set that line to rights!" A bit of nonsense was all very well, but there would be hell to pay if he let the men wake the captain. Sam Oxley at least would know how much he would allow, and hopefully he would set the right tone.

Sam Oxley glanced aft. "Aye, aye, sir." He turned back to the rowdy sailors. "Arright, pipe down, there - Captain's tryin' to get some kip!"

He grinned across at the two young boys. "Ever heard of the Kraken?" he asked them, leaning back against the side of the ship.

This was Tom's brother, if he remembered correctly. Sam Oxley, newly acquired and the source of some misunderstandings when he was first seen. He glanced at Button and wondered if that lad knew it too. If he did not, it was good to explain, and so he did in a whisper before straightening up to answer the lad's inquiry. Well, he was almost more of a man now, than a lad. Much older than them, but still young by the years of the Tars. "Might've. Why?"

He expected Sam to suggest that the Kraken preferred hunting when the night was just like the one that they were having now. And he expected him to say, that Kraken hunted for young Tars, such as Button and such as himself, only because Tars loved to scare those, much young than themselves, knowing that they would, just as Button did, squirm away from the imaginary danger.

"It's a huge great monster, the Kraken. Like a giant octopus with tentacles it can wrap right around a first-rate and crack it like crackin' an egg. Live way down in the South Seas, the Kraken does, but sometimes, when it's really hot up here, it'll get lost and come up here."

Terry was listening, round-eyed.

Warm breeze, clear skies, brightest stars you ever did see. An' someone was flappin' away about a great beast. Fisk padded towards them as quietly as someone his size could ever manage, and sat down near to one of th' young'uns. Terry Button.

"Huge great mons'er? Y' wouldn' be talkin' about me, would ya?" He grinned easily and crooked an elbow over one knee.

Terry looked round, startled as someone loomed out of the starlit darkness to sit near him. He shook his head. "No - 'e was talkin' 'bout the Kraken. Breaks ships up like they was eggs, Sam 'ere says."

He'd heard about all sorts of sea-monsters tonight, and wasn't quite sure he'd manage to sleep for thinking about them when they were dismissed below to their hammocks.

"You seen any sea-monsters?" he asked, wondering it he would ever see anything exciting like the Kraken or the big mermaids of the South Seas.

"Sea-mons'ers, eh?" he considered, rubbing the stubble on his chin thoughtfully. "Nah... can't say tha' I 'ave, can't say tha' I care to, neither."

Fascinating as they might be, far away and in stories, he wouldn't much like to meet his death in that very particular fashion. Fisk clapped the lad on the back, probably a good deal harder than he'd meant to, and chuckled a bit.

"Don' you go lookin' for 'em, hear? Bad luck." Once you started out trying to find them, there was little doubt they'd come looking for you too, he reckoned.

The slap that landed on his back was probably hard enough to leave a bruise, but it wasn't meant to hurt, and Terry was used to bruises anyway. "Ain't plannin' on lookin' for 'em, zackly, Mister," he said, looking up at the big sailor. "Jus' wondered if you'd seen any... And are they all bad?" he asked, addressing the question to the gathered men as a whole.

"Don't think t' Kraken's out there. Not like they say. ...Couse..If'n he was, wouldn't he need a ship per day ter keep 'im fed?... ain't much ter eat of a ship neither unless he likes to chew on wood. He can find much more in t' sea... like t' big things.. t' big fish t' size o' our ship. So.. why'd he even want to gnaw on us, if he was out there?" He looked somewhat nervously at the new arrival. Who knew if he was not going to be the one to tell him to get lost, no matter what Button said would happen.

8Hmm. Fisk considered that, pulled a piece of tack out of his pocket, and tucked it into his jaw. "S'pose they mus' be out there. What wi' so many sayin' they seen it themselves." Just like the mermaids.

Plenty of people who've seen mermaids. Whole bunches of 'em all basking on the rocks.

"S'pose he spits th' wood parts out after, eh?"

"Many people who'd seen lots o' things. Don't mean they're really out there. If'n yer drunk yer can see mermaids right in t' middle o' t' land..." He scoffed looking at the big Tar. He somewhat subconsciously made certain that he was safely keeping Button between himself and the man.

"...I dunno why'd he go a'picking t' little bodies o' the ship. If yer think of it. Why would you try ter pick an' eat a moundful of snails when there's a cow waiting right there?"

"Aye. True," he grinned a bit at the lad, who, in truth, looked like he was seriously considering the possibility that Fisk would go off and swallow him whole.

"S'pose y' must be right."

Oh, don't worry lad. I might be a bit big, yeah, but I've never devoured another human. Yet.

"..I think it's... wot' t' older Tars make up 'couse they want t' scare us. That I mean, younger Tars, ship boys, even landlubbers. Couse they dun' know better. Ain't it so?" He studied Fisk. He was surprised the man not only had not gone up and told him to shut up, which was expected, but rather, had even agreed with him. To some extent perhaps, but more than he would have given him credit for. He relaxed some, though still chose to lie on his belly in a way that would keep the ache away from his mind and the appropriate parts, away from the contact with the ground.

"..Many of t' stories... bein' made up by t' sober Tars, or thought up by them drunk ones?" He paused. It was a fair accusation.

Fisk laughed at that. Aye, yeah. He'd thought of plenty of stories, and a lot of them more far fetched than a Kraken, after a few too many rums. That's true as true can be.

"Like as not," he shrugged.

"Wot' sort are you then?" He started then in a much timider tone continued. "..Which do you do..sober teasin'.. or..got t' tot at t' palm of your hand?" If only the Tar did, and was ready to share it. Alcohol, just as much as laudanum made the things seem less, and the pain forgotten.

"I ain' gonna tell." He said, glancing at Button and then turned to study their new company again. It was not, as if they would have listened to a former middie most disgraced. And being a drunk was what half the crew would be expected to be. Hardly a crime worth the accusation. "Ye know... there's been summat in the hold that needs worrying. Makes.. real unearthy sounds. Like there was wind, just there ain't, like a widow that'd be cryin'.. just there ain't no widow down there."

Fisk quirked an eyebrow in surprise. He wasn't... offended. No. Just, surprised by the question, really, coming from such a timid lad. "Can't say I've ever gone an' told tales jus' f'r th' tellin'." And yes, lad, that was a very diverting answer, wasn't it? It says yeah, I drink, but I'm not about to go shouting it to the world.

Not that I don't trust you, lad, and not that I do trust you either, mind. But mostly it's best keeping things to yourself, yeah. "What? Y' ain't tellin' tales of y'r own now, is ya?"

"No. Ain't tellin' them tales. S' true. All I said. Ain't as terrible as wot' a boy's scull, lost head of a child would be. Mind. But I heard it. A real terrible, bone chilling sound." He nodded seriously and shifted a bit more on his side.

" But... do yer have summat t' wet m' lips with first. Couse's hard ter be telling all t' details, with a throat as dry as 'em desert sand." He rested his chin on a part of his arm, just above the wrist. Then feeling that quite uncomfortable, he tilted it so that it was the soft of his cheek that pressed against the bone.

He blinked suspiciously at the boy, tongue in cheek. Lad, I ain't that hopeless a drunk, eh? But even as he considered he felt for the flask he kept about him. Neither of them was on watch, so there was nothing wrong with a bit of a drink, as long as the little'un there didn't go getting himself drunk.

He passed it over. " 'Ere. Bit o' grog, eh? Jus' a bit, mind ya."