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An Albatross is a unique sea bird. A fun fact about this bird is that it can sleep while in the air while sleeping by locking the joins in its wings and floating on air streams. Many sailors have myths about the bird, as it is one of the few that can be seen while deep in the sea. Some believe that an Albatross is the soul of a dead sailor blessing your journey and that having it by your sailing vessel was a sign of good fortune and safe travels.
Knowing that you have this luck on your side can make even the most weary of sailors relax. But that first requires you to know your birds.
“What’s with all these seagulls?” Bartolomeo walked onto the deck to a sea of big white birds. A group was ripping apart a chair filled with straw and taking the raided materials to make a nest.
“Y’know how granny told us to put those fruits out last night to keep flies away? They’re eating those,” Gambia was already on the phone with granny, trying to figure out how to solve their bird problem.
“What’d she say?”
“Double the amount of spices in any recipe book, especially if it’s a food you already like,” Granny was always right on these things, Bartolomeo committed the advice to memory. He didn’t really cook, but it was good to have these things on hand.
Two of the birds started to bonk their beaks together. The birds almost double the number of sailors and they aren’t tiny. If they get aggressive and start hurting people it could get bad. One of the other crewmates knows stuff about animals so Barto heads below deck to find her.
He’s searching for Xena, the crew's self proclaimed animal handler. As captain he had listened to her when she had said to buy the dogs with low prey drives. She said that meant that they wouldn’t act like prey and would be super brave. The dogs were very good boys so it all was fine.
“Xena, there’s a problem!” He knew that this was like saying that water was wet with the constant amount of problems the crew was constantly finding themselves in, but those were the words that his brain decided to spit out.
“Show me,” Xena was the tallest girl on the crew and her favorite Straw Hat Pirate was Nami. She had to bend to fit below most rafters, but she forgot most of the time and bonked her head more often than not.
According to the doc they had before Dirty Uncle Joe (no one's uncle but just as dirty as the name suggests) she was the least brain damaged of the crew. Xena was also supposed to be on something called a concussion watch. Most of the crew didn’t get the point. If she already had a concussion then why should they watch to make sure she doesn’t get one? She’s already banged up.
Shit like that is why they ended up chasing out the old doc. He knew shit about shit and kept telling them not to stick q-tips in their ears. What were you supposed to do with them besides put them in your ears?
Xena was a good few heads taller than everyone else so she saw many parts of the ship that no one else did. In many high spots and in tight little corners there was just a little guy. Some small carving that had a fucked up face and a great smile. As a collective they were known as Greg.
“They’re just establishing who the alpha is, like with wolves. After the alpha is established the birds will calm down,” Xena pointed to the pair that was putting their beaks together.
The crew eventually all walks onto the deck to watch the birds. Even the helmsman left their post to watch the birds. None of the bird fights had finished but the crew was taking steady bets on who would win. This fell apart when they realized that they couldn’t tell the birds apart but that didn’t stop bells from changing hands.
If they knew even a tiny bit about birds they would have realized that the birds were courting, not fighting but this idea falls apart pretty quickly. It requires the Barto Club to have one thing that they almost entirely lack: knowledge about anything.
The ever present sound of the waves rose and the birds started to take flight into the air. It was a show, birds taking to the air one by one. They didn’t fly off to some location unknown but instead circled in slow rings around the ship.
It took a bit after that for Bartolomeo and the rest of the crew to realize that this disturbance was caused by a marine ship. It was too close for most others to just now realize that it was there, but for this crew it was a good spot, not as close as usual for when the Barto Club would first see them.
The crew ran to battle stations, before realising they had made a stupid mistake. There was no point in rushing to the cannons, they had forgotten to buy more ammo when they were in port and had tossed the few cannonballs they had at a sea king to scare it away. The only option was to wait for the marine ship to draw closer and hope the ship holds under cannon fire.
The inevitable shots don’t ring, the marines, for once in the existence of the organization not being the aggressor. If the members of the Barto Club knew about the superstitions about Albatrosses or even what an Albatross was they would realize that the reason why the marines weren’t shooting was because of fear of harming the birds.
As always the Barto club knows jack about shit so they come to their own conclusions.
“Look! The marines are too afraid to attack us because they know we’re part of the Strawhat Grand Fleet!” Bartolomeo stated what he thought was the obvious explanation to his crew.
The crew nodded in understanding. Those that weren’t stans of the Strawhats bought the information off of the fact that they were now associated with an emperor and that would be cause for them not to be shot on sight as a pirate. Those that were stans just took it on face value.
Bartolomeo suddenly had an idea, a way to show his dominance over the marines.
He walked slowly up to the side of the ship, facing the marines, and then turned his back to the enemy ship. He fumbles with his belt for a few moments. He drops his pants and underwear in one swoop and moons the marines.
“Hehhahahah”