Chapter Text
The sounds of distant shouts, heavy objects being lifted by cranes, and the smell of sea water and wielded metal clogged Kraglin's senses. Luckily, he was used to loud noises and sea water. Still, he spared a glance around at everything around him, even turning full circle until his eyes landed on a man sitting on a folding chair beside the roped-off end of a boarding/unloading dock of a massive vessel. He appeared to be asleep, head down with his chin touching his chest, hidden underneath his thick beard.
Kraglin swallowed any ounce of nervousness he had in his body and stalked towards the man. "Uh, excuse me?"
The man's head lifted to reveal that he was not asleep. Probably board, or waiting for someone.
"Can I help ya with something?" The man asked, tilting his head back to look up at the awkward and skinny man.
"I don't mean to interrupt you, but is your captain around?"
"Captain don't like to be bothered. Is it deathly important?"
"Uhmm, no...it's not, it's just that-"
"Anything that don't need the captain's immediate attention is taken up with me. What the hell do ya want?" The man was snappy and rude, but Kraglin didn't let that intimidate him. He didn't want to make a bad first impression.
"I want a job," Kraglin said, standing up straight and puffing out his chest.
"Okay," the man said with a shrug.
"I'm responsible, hard-working, and– wait, what?"
"I said okay," grumbled the man. "You got the job. There ain't no need to hype yourself up by lyin' to me."
"I ain't lyin! And why are you so willingly saying yes?" Kraglin gave the man a skeptical look.
"Because it's been a while since we've had any newbies around. The last ones all fled after our last sail. The ones before them did the same, only a few of the ones who could take on the life of a true sea mate stayed. A new guy means entertainment for the rest of us crew. A scrawny guy like you ain't gonna last long. You'll be scrambling to get off our ship at first port."
"That's not true!" Kraglin defended. "I bet you I could last an entire sail, from the first port to the last!"
"Nah. You're not big or strong enough for the heavy work, and yer mug's too ugly to work the passenger decks. You'll probably be assigned floor scrubin' duty. But since I do like winning bets, I'll strike it as a deal." The man stuck his hand out, waiting for Kraglin to shake on it. "How much are we talking?"
"One thousand."
"Make it two."
"Fine. Two thousand." Kraglin took the man's hand in his own bones one and gave it a firm shake. "I'm Kraglin, by the way."
"An ugly name for an ugly face."
"I'm sure yours isn't any better!"
"I've had plenty of people tell me Horuz is a cool name!" The man, Horuz, scoffed.
"It's not. So...are you gonna show me around or..?
"Actually, since you're so keen on working, we do need an extra set of hands. Are you good with construction?" Asked Horuz, standing up and leading Kraglin's toward the sound of heavy construction down the dock.
"I've done my fair share of stuff."
The pair walked parallel to the ship, nearing the tail. Kraglin could see the massive chains that hung down the side of the boat and disappeared in to the water, keeping the thing anchored. Beside one of the chains, some men sat on hanging platforms, closing a large hole in the ship's hull. The hole looked about 20 feet high and too wide for Kraglin to calculate. "That's huge."
"You should have seen it two week ago. It was about three times the size. We're due to set sail in two weeks and we need it closed by then. Any help is a blessing. Ever worked on ships before?"
Kraglin nodded, "Back when I was in prison they had us pass time by fixing things such as bits of ships and airplanes. That's kind of why I came here. I'd like to think I know my way around a ship pretty nicely. I used to work on a cargo ship, too. Not as huge as this one but still a good size. Our crew only had about 50 men."
"How'd you end up in prison?"
"A few friends and I used our privilege as sailors to smuggle drugs...among other things. I heard your captain hires people with bad histories and criminal records and such..."
"Our captain himself has a pretty impressive record," Horuz shrugged, kneeling to open up a black chest that sat on the dock. He fished out a harness and all but shoved it at Kraglin before grabbing one for himself and a few other dangerous-looking tools.
"Um, thanks," Kraglin took the harness and strapped it to himself, taking whatever tools Horuz handed him and following the bearded man toward another man who was about to climb in to a small crane. Horuz and the other man conversed for a moment before Horuz instructed Kraglin to follow his lead.
Working for minuets turned to hours, and the hours turned in to three days, but the hole in the ship was closed and sealed with some kind of reinforcing material to prevent water leaking in. Good as new.
As much as Kraglin would hate to ever admit, his very first job had been tiring. His spine ached and he felt tired, and his fingers held red imprints of the handle of the Wielder's torch he had clasped in his grip for hours on end. But he wouldn't let himself show any sign of exhaustion. He had a bet to win.
Sighing, Kraglin turned over in his bunk to stare at the ceiling above him. He'd woken up before his set alarm, again, and he groaned internally. He had set it to go off at 5 AM, it was 4:40. There was no point in trying to go back to sleep. Luckily, he'd been placed in a room by himself. Probably because nobody wanted the new guy in their room. The first night of his new job, he slept outside on the dock with a few of the other guys. Mainly because he hadn't really been given a room yet. The other guys offered him some beers and he might've had a few too many and slept with his head pillowed on his backpack while the others slept on benches or crates or underneath tarps. That's probably why his back hurt; sleeping on a solid wood ground wasn't very comfortable.
He was given this room once word got around that there was a new guy. No one wanted to share a room with the new kid they hadn't gotten to know yet. He thought that most people would have been dying to have a room to themselves but he was quick to find out that that was not the case. These guys liked to party. The more the merrier, apparently. Last night the guys across the hall had some kind of party in their room. Kraglin caught a glimpse inside when he passed by (the door was open) and they had managed to squeeze about 12 people in to the tiny room, spread out between the four bunks and the floor between them, drinking happily amongst themselves.
It almost made him wish he had made friends already. But then he considered that it wouldn't be worth it to wake up hungover the next morning squashed in a room with 11 other equally hungover people and one very tiny bathroom cubicle. Luckily for Kraglin, he got one of the smaller rooms. The rooms on the right side of the hallway were smaller, only having two beds and a bathroom, as opposed to the ones across the hall on the left side, which had enough room for two bunk beds; four in total.
He figured he might as well get his day started, since he couldn't fall back asleep. He changed out of the clothes he was in and tugged on his new outfit. A blue vest set over a red and white striped shirt, blue pants, and a stupid white sailor's hat. The red ascot he tied around his neck was optional, according to Horuz, but it looked good on him so he wore it anyways. It was an odd uniform, meant to represent a cartoon-ish sailor instead of a real one. Word was captain had updated their uniforms to this goofy costume-type one to piss everyone off after they'd pissed him off the last time they sailed.
The captain didn't seem like such a nice guy. Kraglin wondered how he was able to captain a ship full of passengers while seemingly grumpy 24/7 (from what he's heard from the crew.)
When he was done changing, he stuffed his dirty clothes in to a laundry bag and tossed it on the bed underneath his bed for lacing up his white Chuck Taylors (which coincidentally matched the colors of his outfit). They were his newest pair of shoes, and he was quite proud of them. Even if he did spend the last fifty dollars he owned on them.
He slid open the door to his room (he was a little shocked to find that they had sliding doors instead of normal doors, but he guessed that it was better than trying to squeeze in or out of a crowded room or hallway with a door in the way. He used his fingers to guide his visible hair in the direction he wanted, making the tuft in the front stick up ward in front of the rim of the hat. It was messy, but not in the 'this boy didn't even try to make himself look presentable when he rolled out of bed' kind of messy. It was more of a 'i tried the messy hair thing because girls think it's cute'. Except no one on the ship thought he was cute. As far as he knew.
He stalked toward the mess hall, stopping once to unfold the floor map that was in his back pocket, glance at it quickly, then fold it up and stuff it back in his pocket. He didn't want to look like a dumb new kid, fresh off the shore. He was far from that, but this ship was bigger than any ship he'd been on before. The mess hall wasn't completely empty. Some men stood behind the glass in each of the three lines, and a handful of crew members who had woken earlier than Kraglin had already been eating.
He grabbed a tray for himself and stepped in to the nearest line, thanking whoever was serving him, despite the skeptical look the guy gave him. Probably not used to getting 'thank you's from fellow crew members. Seating himself in an empty chair at an equally empty table, he began to quickly eat, before the rest of the crew decided to show up.
He'd been assigned the role of deck-scrubber, like Horuz had said he would (the guy's probably the one who put him on schedule) which meant he'd be working the night shift as soon as the sailing season started. But for now his job was to make sure each deck was cleaned, especially the passenger decks, and that everything that needed to be in place was in place. He had a small team with him, three girls and five other guys who immediately split in to teams of two to tackle different areas of the ship, leaving Kraglin by himself while the others immediately began to catch up on what they'd missed out since they last saw eachother and toss about old inside jokes.
Two of the girls had teamed up with each other, and after a few awkward glances, one of them approached Kraglin.
"You can help us, kid," she said, gesturing toward herself and her friend. Kraglin was pretty sure he was older than them, by at least for or five years, but he didn't say anything about it. They were offering to let him join them, probably after feeling bad for his lonely ass. "We're gonna start at the top open deck and work our way down so that when we're done we can just put all our shit back in the supply closets and go to our bunks or the mess hall. Instead of having to haul everything to the lower deck and hope nothing spills or gets dirty by other crew members and you end up having to go back down and clean it again, y'know?"
"Yeah," Kraglin nodded.
"So c'mon, kid." She grabbed his wrist with one hand while she held two mops in the other, dragging him along after her friend who was already halfway there.
"Kraglin," he said, picking up his pace to keep up with her rushed one.
"What?"
"My name. It's Kraglin, not kid. I'm not a kid."
"Well all I can say is get used to it. Everyone's gonna call ya kid. Or 'New Kid' or 'newbie' or 'greenie'. You're the new kid."
Scrubbing the floors and setting chairs at tables seemed like slightwork. But the more it dragged on, the more Kraglin wished he were doing something else. It was just a constant cycle of mop-and-scrub one area, the put the chairs around each table in that area. Then on to the next area. And they were still on the top deck. They were currently cleaning the inside of the restaurant that sat on the top deck. It was one large room that was shaped almost like an oval. One half of the wall was made of giant panes of glass, one of which slid open to connect the inner dining area to the outer dining area. Probably the fanciest part of the ship.
"It could be worse," one of the girls said. "This is way better than working down below. Trust me it gets hot downstairs sometimes and you're just constantly doing the most boring shit."
"Cleaning the floors isn't boring to you?" He scoffed.
"It is. But at least we have fresh air and a view," she gestured out side the windows. The big blue sea stretched on for miles and the orange sun was rising over the land on the other side of the boat. "Down there it's just walls and the noises of the pipes and everyone grumbling or drinking or shouting for no damned reason. And if you do come across a window you're most likely looking out underwater. Which would be cool if the windows weren't so cloudy."
"I need...a break. If I have to look at this stupid wooden floor again and ask myself if I already mopped over it or not, I might just throw myself overboard. And it's only day one." Kraglin set the mop down in it's wheeled bucket and strolled out on to the other parts of the deck, passing by other crew members who were milling about, some cleaning, some moving things from one place to another, some slacking off and sitting around talking. He leaned on the edge railing looking out at the sea. The smell of the salty water and sand filled his nostrils. He thought he'd never find himself working on a boat again, but it seemed that fate didn't follow the tracks on his train of thought. Maybe this time he wouldn't fuck Up everything by getting involved with the wrong people.
His thoughts were interrupted by someone yelling "All align for Captain Quill!"
"Aligning!" Someone shouted back, and everyone got off their lazy asses to form some kind of soul-train line on either side of the main 'walkway'. Kraglin quickly hurried to stand in the line, not wanting to be spotted as the obvious new guy.
"What are we doing?" He whispered to the guy beside him. "Who's Quill? Is he our captain? Is he–"
"Shut up and salute," the guy beside him snapped.
Kraglin looked around, seeing that everyone else was saluting, and quickly lifted a hand to his forehead.
"Wrong hand, dumbass," the guy snorted. Kraglin hurriedly switched hands and held his back straight, turning his head in the direction everyone else seemed to be attentive to.
Kraglin was expecting a big burly guy. Someone with scars. Someone who looked tough. Tough enough to sleep knowing he had a bunch of ex-criminals as well as a bunch of other people he did not know working and staying aboard his ship. Captain Quill sounded like a tough, badass name. Like a man who just might be very honorable.
What Kraglin was not expecting was a dog to come bounding happily down the middle of the isle of people, tongue out as he zig-zagged down the line, sniffing at different people. Some of them caved and kneeled to give the dog a few pets.
"Um...where's Quill?" Kraglin asked the snappy man beside him.
"That is Quill."
"Our captain is a fucking dog!?" Kraglin exclaimed dropping his hand from his forehead in favor of raising them in disbelief. "You guys are out here taking orders from a dog? Please tell me this is a joke!"
"Would ya shut up and get back in line? You're gonna make a scene in front of everyone, newbie!" The man retorted. "Don't disrespect Quill like that, either. Ya hear? He ain't 'a dog'. He's crew."
"The corgi is a crew member?" As if on cue, the stumpy-legged dog bounced over and began yapping at Kraglin. The man failed to notice the way every else's salutes went from a hand at their head to a fist across their chest. He was too busy trying to shoo the noisy animal away. "Get," he nudged the dog with his shoe. "Go away, I don't have anything you want!" He took a few steps toward the dog, chasing it in hopes that it would leave. Instead it only began to yap louder and louder, bouncing around Kraglin playfully and pouncing all over his pretty little shoes, pulling the laces out of their loops in mere seconds.
Kraglin didn't hate animals, oh no. But he didn't quite like them either. Especially not little noisy fuzzballs that made chew toys out of his brand new shoes. "Oh, go away you stupid thing!" He roughly nudged the dog with his foot sending it sliding away from him on the wood flooring, ignoring the gasps of the crew members next to him.
He didn't notice that someone was standing behind him until the person spoke.
"Is there a reason you're kicking my fucking dog?"
Kraglin turned around, taking in the sight of the man dressed in all white from head to toe. He took one look at the boards on the man's shoulders and counted the four gold stripes on each one. His voice sounded weaker than he wanted it to, and he mentally cursed himself when he attempted to speak.
"C-cap'n?"