Chapter Text
“Way hay and up she rises,
Way hay up she rises,
Earl-eye in the morning!”
Pepper finished her song with a flourish as the gathered crowd of shipwrights, sailors and fishermen clapped for her performance.
“Thank you! Thank you everyone!”
A belltower clang loudly in the distance, giving the crowd a reminder of the time before slowly dispersing across the busy docks of the Newtwon port.
Newtwon was a normal enough port town. It was one of many poor towns that had been ravaged during a storm some odd years ago and never properly recovered. Filled with enough sailors and merchants to fill a fleet of ships, the entire town basically lived in the sea, making the docks a prime spot for bards to busk for extra coppers.
Looking up to the sky, she was met by the sun, just rising up through the early morning mist and nearly high enough to match the height of the ship masts that dotted the horizon. Seems like her busking time is up. As sailors tend to be on the open waters for most of the day, the best time for getting any money was before the day started. Before anyone had time to spend their day’s wages at whatever local pub was having the best sale.
Pepper shivered at the thought, she hated alcohol. The taste was weird, it didn’t help fill her stomach and just made anyone who drank it act stupid.
Picking up her newsboy hat, she checked her earnings for the day and was pleasantly surprised to see that she had earned more than enough for her and Jackson’s meals for the day. Pepper stood up on the barrel she had perched on and easily spotted Jackson’s teal bandana near one of the many job boards scattered across the waterfront.
“Jackson! Jackson!” Pepper called as she ran across oak planks covered in fish, seaweed and anything that the local fishermen were able to dredge up from the bottom of the sea that made up the docks, “I’ve gotten us dinner!”
“Great job Pepper.” Her friend turned his attention away from the job board and gave her a pat on the back, “Just don’t forget rule zero again, alright?”
“I’ve only done that once!”
“Once this week you mean? Then what were you doing over the weekend?”
“Sunday doesn’t count as part of the week, so only once!”
“You know it's only Tuesday, right?"
“Anyways!” Pepper said, changing the topic, “Any luck with th-”
She was cut off by Jackson suddenly pulling her to the ground as a weird looking haddock came flying at where her face would have been. Surprised, she stood back up and looked around for where the fish came from.
“What’s going -”
Pepper was interrupted once again as another haddock came flying in her direction, this time hitting her in the face.
“Hey!”
Picking herself up from the oak planks, she is greeted by a tall fisherwoman with short black hair and a crimson windbreaker, and a shorter woman with orange hair, a green poncho and weird looking ears running towards her.
“My apologies!” the woman in red yelled towards Pepper, “Although I threw that fish in your direction it was not my intention to cause you harm. Are you injured?”
“Oh, it's fine!” she smiles reassuringly at the tall lady, “I’m very dirigible!”
“You mean, durable?” Jackson interjected,
“Yeah, that too!” she stuck out her hand, "Nice to meet you, I’m Pepper and the guy rolling his eyes is Jackson!”
“I am known as Mara and this is my dear companion Rayne.” She gestures to the woman in green and shakes Pepper’s hand before smiling back, “What are the two of you doing on the docks? I do not recognize you from any of the local fishing guilds.”
Jackson takes one last look at the job board and turns to face Mara, “We’re currently looking for jobs, although we might be out of luck.”
“Would we be able to join you in your search? I don’t think any of the merchants here will pay us a lot of copper for our fish. ”
Mara holds up the haddock that had hit Pepper in the face earlier. She hadn’t gotten a good look at the fish before, but now she was able to see that the large grey fish somehow had two heads and eyes covering its back.
“What happened to it?” Jackson asked in confusion as Pepper poked the weird fish. It seemed relatively normal, the haddock just flopped around like any other dead fish would.
Except, you know, with two heads.
And lots of eyes.
“As I was saying, it looks cursed to me.” Rayne, the lady with orange hair added, “Clearly, none of the local sea gods have that type of influence over the local creatures, or we’d all look like that fish.”
“A curse would be the most logical explanation,” agreed Mara, “All throughout the past week, we have not been able to catch any fish that don’t have at least one irregularity. If this pattern continues, we will start to run low on coins.”
Pepper, losing interest in the current conversation, starts to scan the wooden planks that make up the job board covered in all sorts of applications for the royal navy, wanted posters for local pirates and scraps of paper from locals looking for help with odd jobs. Just with a quick glance there were plenty of things they could do!
“Oh, look!” She interrupted Jackson who seemed to be on one of his daily tangents about how sad he was, “We could try and capture Blackbeard the Bloody? It’s got a great bounty!”
“Absolutely not!” Jackson counters, and Mara nods in agreement, “We don’t have any experience bounty hunting!”
“Also,” Rayne adds, “Unless you have a death wish, you’d quickly learn why he’s known as ‘The Bloody’. It's just not worth it.”
“We know that.” stated Mara, “It is his name. And his name was given to him by his parents.”
“That's not what I -” sighed Rayne, “Never mind.”
“How about this one!” Pepper pointed to a fancy looking piece of parchment, “The local cartogra- cortogr-, map making guild needs some rocky coastline mapped out!”
“No!” Rayne shouts, catching everyone off guard, “You've better chances with Mr. Bloody than dealing with those rocks. Trust me, it's dangerous.”
“Uh.. yeah.” Jackson nods hesitantly, “Also, we don’t have a boat.”
“What happened to the one from last week?” asked Pepper, “That one was so nice!”
“Stolen.”
“The week before?.”
"Sunk by pirates"
"Aw pebbles."
“Excuse me?” Mara spoke up, “I am in possession of a boat if it could be of any use in our travels.”
She gestures to a small fishing boat tied to the dock. It’s around three meters long and was clearly made for one person and a small barrel of fish.
On second thought, make that a basket of fish
Pepper thinks it looks perfect!
Jackson doesn’t.
“I think we can find something better,” He gave her a shallow smile, trying not to hurt her feelings “but, thanks Mara.”
“You are welcome!”
“Fine!” Pepper throws her hands up in mock frustration, “If all the fun jobs are off the table, then it looks like there's some rich guy looking for a crew.”
“Really? Something reasonable?” Jackson takes another look at the job board, “What do ya know? Can’t believe I missed it.” He takes another look at the paper pinned to the wall and squints at the messy scrawl that seemed to be handwriting, “Who’s the rich guy?”
“Some guy named Privateer Elliott? I haven't heard of him.”
For a supposed rich guy, no one else in the group recognized the name or the poorly drawn portrait that was nailed beside the ‘Crew wanted’ flier. Although Jackson admitted that if the Privateer was a part of the Royal Navy, he clearly was new enough to the job that he didn't know how the recruitment process was supposed to work, and probably worked in logistics or another similar cohort because most Privateers who sailed under the crown's flag were well known across the sea for their fights against pirates and sea monsters of all types. The tale of Hawke the Bold was her best moneymaker for a reason, people loved to here about the navy's grand exploits.
“So what do we think?” Pepper took the paper off the board and held it out to her group, and the stranger in green, “Can we do it?”
“It’s the best idea that we've come up with that wouldn't get us killed before we could receive payment,” Jackson decided, “And it’ll help get my title back. I’m up for it!”
Rayne agrees, “I guess I'll be joining you. Being a part of one of the Royal Navy's fleets would make us so famous!”
Pepper turns to Mara who’s still studying the advertisement closely. “What do ya think? Doesn't it sound fun!”
“I am hesitant to search for the man known as Privateer Elliot.” Mara frowns, “if he is indeed a member of the Royal Navy, then I will need to meet him in person before deciding to accept his offer. Although I am sure he is a fine fellow, I do not care for the organization he is choosing to represent.”
“What did the navy ever do to you?” Jackson scoffed and took the paper back from Mara to look for any additional information about finding this guy,
Mara looked wistfully out to the bay full of boats, gulls and whatever else lay below the surface and stated, “When I was five, my village was burned down and there was nothing I could do to stop it -”
Pepper once again lost interest in the conversation and started looking around for the Privateer. Newtwon wasn’t anywhere close to a capitol so their crisp navy tailcoats, the standard uniform for anyone representing the crown, should have easily stood out against the well worn and tattered clothes that made up almost every sailors wardrobe. Hoping to get a better vantage point, Pepper scaled the post of the job board and carefully stood up to look across the bustling docks.
“Jackson! Jackson!” she cried in excitement, unaware of her friend’s surprised reaction to her habit of climbing things when she got bored. “I think I’ve found him!”
Off in the distance, on the north end of the dock, a new ship had approached the harbor. The modified merchant vessel towered over the other fishing boats as its pristine white sails blew in the wind, just underneath the flag of the crown. It was a beauty and every sailor's dream to captain or even just work on a boat like that. Pepper was no different.
The vessel also held a crew of navy coats who were preparing to disembark at Newtwon.
“Let's go!” Pepper cheered, as she jumped down from the job board and raced towards the merchant vessel with Jackson, Mara and Rayne behind her.