What's up y'all! It's Tuesday, and you know what that means. I'll reply to comments first as always, then talk about the chosen story (spoiler alert: it's unanimously Pirates), and then post an extra special surprise. ;) 

@DG, I'm glad it had that much impact on you! (Well, not glad that you almost cried. Glad that my writing made you feel something, even if that something is sadness.)

@Kitten, same goes to you! I think a well-written piece of writing should make the readers feel something, and in this case, that something was sadness. I hope that y'all almost-crying means that it was well written!

@Quill, I guess your comment actually answers the rhetorical question I just asked Kitten. XD As for the actual canon ending, I'd just like to direct you to pages 19/20 of the original novel thread, helpfully posted by Kitten. There's a short story that just about wraps it up on page 19, and individual endings on page 20. 

@PygmyOwl, yep! It's been posted before. I started posting it in 2017 (when I was 13) and I posted new content, usually on Tuesdays and Friday, right up until I started my full hiatus in early 2019. (And scrolling back through that thread, there's a post from March 14, 2019 where I mention an un-canon coffeeshop AU that I'm pretty sure is Crow's Coffee! So I finally have a date on that, unless I have another story stashed away somewhere.)

@Summer, nah, you're not late! Palpable angst was definitely my goal. ALSO, when I was scrolling through the original novel thread, I found some fanart of Sterling that you drew and I'm seriously so obsessed with it. It was more than a year ago now but I'd just like to thank you again for drawing it. :D

Now, the chosen story! Obviously, it's Pirates. It was very unanimously voted. Chills and this is the end will return in a few weeks to run up against another full-length story (since by that point I might have edited it, lol). I'd also like to take a quick (ha when is it ever actually quick) second to talk about my story selection process. In the first round of voting, I just picked 3 full-length short stories. In the future, though, I'm going to pick 1 full-length story and 2 one-shots, just because I have more one-shots and I'm way behind in my editing for the full-length short stories. And if Pirates hadn't been selected, it would have run for one more week before being knocked out. If something gets 1 or less votes for 3 rounds of voting, then I'll take it out. If a story is taken out of the running, I'll bring it back in eventually. I'm just shuffling it to the back of the "pile" to bring out some new content, basically. So even if something is "knocked out" it'll be back at some point.

Okay! Now that that not-so-short quick announcement is out of the way, I can start posting Pirates. The first chapter has actually already been uploaded due to me being too impatient to actually wait for the voting to finish, so you can find it on the first page of this thread. Pirates chapters are significantly shorter than Crow's Coffee chapters, so I might end up posting little bonuses with each chapter, but we'll see. 

Aaaaaaand that is the perfect little segue into my next thing! The extra super-duper special bonus content! With lots of adjectives! And exclamation points! I finally made those drawings I referenced in the Crow's Coffee Q&A. I have headshots of Roman and Tonya, and hopefully I'll get Angel and the magic pins drawn at some point or another, too. I'm not super happy with Roman's coloring, so I'd also like to direct your attention to Fidelity's amazing art of him on page 4! He looks so incredible and I like that version of him more than the one I drew. So that's that! Stay healthy and stay safe, and I'll be back with the second chapter of Pirates on Friday! <3

~Starseeker 

Here's Tonya!

~Starseeker 

And Roman! Again, a better version by Fidelity is on page 4.

~Starseeker 

Sounds great! 

I'm too active on this site.

why did i say my location is pet cheetah. 

What's up y'all, it's Friday and you know what that means! In case you happened to miss this fact on Tuesday, the first chapter of Pirates is on the first page of this thread, so make sure you read that before continuing. Today's update will feature the second chapter. But first, the comments!

@Summer, I'm glad you like my drawing of Tonya! And I'm super flattered that you think she's an awesome character. She's someone that I came up with on the fly as I was writing her, but she's so funny and spunky. I'm glad I gave her a bigger role in the story!

@DG (lol I almost wrote @Tonya), thank you!! I think your art is really cool so it's such a compliment that you like mine. :)

@Howdee, welcome to the story, I hope you're enjoying it so far! "Pet cheetah" is an excellent location. Quite nonsensical, but excellent nonetheless. (Why did I turn into a Victorian age author just there...?)

There's also a little bit of pirate vocab in this. I tried to stay away from a lot of technical terms in this story (such as all the parts of the ship), but some were unavoidable. I'll include some definitions now, but there will also be explanations later on in the story.

First Mate: the person who is second in command after the captain. Can also become the "acting captain", which is exactly what it sounds like-- they can take over and act as a captain of the ship if the real captain is unable to.  

Quartermaster: basically the person in charge after the captain and the first mate. Also in charge of the rations and supplies.

Boatswain: A junior officer; higher in rank than a normal crew member but lower than the quartermaster and first mate. Helps the quartermaster with the rations and supplies; a bit like the quartermaster's secretary. (I have referenced literally one website for all this information and I'm sort of piecing it all together to fit my story.)

~~~

CHAPTER 2 : INTRODUCTIONS

In Which Zoey Has Trouble Finding Her Pants

Dang it, I never should have let myself be caught. I’m better than this! Better than being snagged in a pirate’s net and dragged on board, having to disguise my tail as a pair of pale human legs. I’ll just have to wait this out and keep playing the poor lost little maiden until I can escape. Now they’re going to do who-knows-what to me.

The girl stops in front of us, letting both her hand and her hook rest on her hips. “Well well well,” she says, grinning. “Look what we have here. You’re sopping wet! Are you straight out of the ocean?”

The girl picks up a strand of my hair and clicks her tongue.

Blaiyre sighs. “She doesn’t talk, according to Jasak. Look, she’s your problem now, alright? I just came in here to drop her off as a favor to my brother. I’m on deck duty right now. See you later.” Then she leaves, the sound of the ocean coming tantalizingly close as she opens the door, only to be muted again when it thumps shut after her receding back.

The girl turns back to me, still smiling. “Well, that’s Blaiyre, all right! If she wasn’t Jasak’s sister I’d probably tell her off for her rudeness. But ah well. I have bigger things to worry about.”

“Like my stab wound?” The guy on the table pipes up. “I’m still bleeding? Maylene? Help?”

The girl— Maylene— laughs a little. “Oops, sorry Feroc! I forgot about you for a second there. Let me come over and finish stitching you up.” She bustles back over to the table and dexterously sweeps up a needle and thread using her hook. She then hums a little bit while making the final touches to the guy’s stab wound. When she finishes, she pats the guy on the shoulder and he hops off her table, rotating his bare shoulder a few times. When he turns, I can see his features— tanned, dark haired, and almost ridiculously buff. He smiles at me.

“Hi there! I’m Feroc.” He sticks out a hand, but I don’t take it, instead clutching the coat a little tighter around my body. He notices my movement and drops his hand, only to hold both his hands out non-threateningly. “Whoa there! I’m not going to hurt you. You have nothing to fear from me. I’m not interested in whatever you’re hiding under that coat, either, if you catch my drift.” He winks at me.

Just as I’m considering how to respond, the door to the cabin bursts open, a man’s figure filling the doorway. He grins when he sees Feroc standing up.

“Fer!” He bellows, striding into the room and hugging Feroc. “You’re up!”

Feroc hugs him back just as hard. “I wasn’t really ever down, Ty. It was just a small stab.”

“Small, yeah right,” Maylene grumbles. “With the way you two were carrying on, you would have thought that Feroc was in pieces.”

Feroc lets Tyrian out of his bear-hugging grip, but keeps an arm around his shoulders. Tyrian wraps both his arms around Feroc’s waist. 

“I can’t help it! I thought he was going to die.” Tyrian says. Feroc leans down and kisses the side of Tyrian’s head, and suddenly his comment about not being interested about what’s under my coat makes sense.

Feroc pokes Tyrian’s arm affectionately. “You were literally the one who stabbed me. You knew it wasn’t a big idea.”

Tyrian fake-pouts. “I didn’t mean to stab you! The practice sword broke.”

Feroc nods. “Oh yeah, that. I threw the pieces overboard.”

Tyrian swats Feroc on the arm. “Oh my claws! We could have welded that back together. Seriously. It’s not a big deal.”

Feroc pokes Tyrian back. “It is a big deal, because it was dangerous and could have hurt you or someone else the way it ended up hurting me.”

Tyrian rolls his eyes, but even I can see the love in the gesture. “Dumby,” he says affectionately.

Feroc grins. “Maybe I am a dumby, but I’m your dumby,” he replies, and sweeps Tyrian into a kiss.

Maylene clears her throat once the kiss starts to drag on a bit long. “Gentlemen, we do have a guest. Please take your canoodling somewhere else, preferably off the end of the plank.”

I cough from where I’m standing in the corner. Feroc turns to me, and his grin freezes.

“Holy mother of— hi! Hello! I forgot you were standing there. Shoot. Claws, this is awkward. Hi, I’m Feroc, the dumby who got stabbed by a broken sword, and this is my boyfriend, Tyrian. I promise I usually introduce myself before kissing him in front of people.”

“She doesn’t speak,” Maylene pipes up. “At least according to Blaiyre, who got it from Jasak.”

“I…” I start, then cough, my throat feeling dry in the air. Claws, I miss the water. “I do talk.”

Feroc pumps the air with the hand not around Tyrian’s shoulders. “She speaks! Excellent.”

Maylene smiles in relief. “Thank claws, this is going to make this whole day so much easier. Let’s start with something easy. What’s your name?”

“My name?” I echo. I think for a second. My real name, Zoelairaestebelle, would be too difficult to pronounce for them without a little practice. “Zoey,” I decide. “My name is Zoey.”

“Well, Zoey, it’s excellent to meet you, but I’m afraid we really do have to go,” Tyrian says, extricating himself from underneath Feroc’s arm. “Feroc needs to finish giving lessons to the crew about sword fighting, while I need to apparently stay out of future demonstrations.”

The two men wave at me before exiting the cabin, leaving Maylene and I in relative silence. She turns to me and taps her hook on her hand.

“Well, now you’ve met the quartermaster, Feroc, and Tyrian, the boatswain! And you’ve already met Jasak, the first mate, and his sister, Blaiyre. That just leaves… the rest of the crew.” Maylene blows out a breath. “Well, unless you decide to stay, that won’t be an issue. Where were you headed before we fished you out of the ocean?” She directs me to sit on the table that Feroc vacated not long ago. I hop up and readjust Jasak’s coat, thinking. I can’t exactly tell them that I was swimming to Lydianzaa, the mercreature capital, can I?

Maylene takes my silence as disapproval. She shrugs. “That’s cool if you don’t want to say. I just wanted to let you know that we could take you somewhere if it was along the way. We’re headed to the Zentarean mainland, if that helps sway your decision.”

Maylene lifts up my arms and slides off Jasak’s coat. When I flinch, she stops and raises her hands. “I swear I’m not doing anything weird. I just need to know if you’re hurt or not. If you feel uncomfortable at any time, please let me know and I’ll stop, okay? No questions asked. We don’t judge here.”

At my nod, Maylene finishes sliding off the coat and starts looking me over, turning my limbs this way and that to inspect me for any scrapes or bruises. As she examines me, I think over my answer to her question.

“Yes,” I blurt out. Maylene puts her hands on her hips.

“I said a lot of stuff. You’re going to have to be a bit more specific than that, dear,” she says dryly.

“Yes, you can take me somewhere. It wasn’t exactly where I was headed, but the Zentarean mainland is close enough that I can secure passage to my destination from there. I’ll just join you guys on your journey, and then when it’s over, we’ll part company.”

Maylene brightens. “Excellent! And what else is excellent is your health. Despite being just dragged out of the ocean in the middle of nowhere, you seem to be perfectly fine. Although, I’m sure Jasak would like his coat back eventually, so why don’t you come grab some clothes of mine?”

Maylene helps me off the table and then goes to the back of the room, where a cot is pushed into the corner and a few cabinets sit neatly in a row. Maylene opens one of the drawers and pulls out a shirt, undergarments, and a pair of folded pants. She hands them to me and says, “I’ll go wait outside and make sure no-one comes inside while you’re changing, okay?”

“Okay,” I echo. She walks out the cabin door, and it shuts with a soft snick. I unfold the shirt and undergarments and tug them both on, followed by the pants. The shirt and undergarments fit fine, but the pants sag majorly around the hips and waist. I contemplate unlacing the shirt to make an improvisational belt, but that would just make the shirt gap open in the front, which definitely also isn’t something I want.

I walk over to the door, holding onto the pants all the way, and open it, poking my head out.

“Maylene?” I call.

She turns from her position to my right and looks at me. “Yes?” She looks down and frowns at my pants. “Oh, I see the problem. That won’t do.”

She walks inside the cabin with me and closes the door, then instructs me to take off the pants and hand them to her. She re-folds them and puts them back into the drawer they came out of, then steps back and looks at me. The shirt comes down to mid-thigh, since it’s a tunic, so the loss of pants isn’t completely devastating.

“I know what we can do,” she announces. “I think you’re about the same size as Captain Sterling, since she’s a little leaner than me around the hips. If you’ll put Jasak’s coat back on over the shirt, the combination should cover you well enough to get you to her cabin.”

Following her instructions, I put Jasak’s coat back on, and it reaches to about my knees. She surveys me again, gives an approving nod, and then leads me back out on deck. The first thing I hear is the sound of the waves calling me home. The second thing is an argument. 

~~~

Aaaaand there we go! Like I said, the story will go more into the characters' positions on board the ship later on (Chapter 5, actually) so don't worry about all that just yet. Hope you liked it! Also, a side note that I can't remember if I've mentioned before-- Jasak and Blaiyre are both Vyolette's AEs, so credit goes to her for their names and personalities. I haven't quite figured out a way to work in her third AE, Hugh, but we're getting there.

~Starseeker 

Sorry y'all, today's update is going to be delayed. I don't feel fantastic. I might upload the full update and extra bonus content later, but I'm starting school tomorrow and the next update is Friday anyway. I don't know. Sorry.

~Starseeker