Iguanatopia - ONC 2021 (Completed)

3: Maptopia

Loud crunches were heard as Ignacio devoured a bowl full of turnip leaves and potato peels. Grace had been pleased when Alba explained that the animal could be used for the disposal of leftovers.

Alba wasn't as enthusiastic about her food as the iguana was. Her bowl was filled with turnip and potato stew with some stray pieces of salted ham. She was overall quite sick of turnips, but it seemed there was no escaping them. A couple of weeks ago the crew had found a load of turnips floating in the ocean, a ship must have dropped them, and like the scavengers they were they had fished the vegetables up with a net. So now they ate turnips. All day. Every day.

Turnip soup. Turnip stew. Turnip porridge. Turnip cake. Some inventive sailor had even tried to make turnip wine. It had tasted like well... turnip, but the men had still drunk it.

Up by the helm, she could hear Joe and Pedro bicker over the map. What a surprise... They had splayed it out all over the captain's table and were attempting to interpret it. It didn't seem to go well. Perhaps she should intervene before they tore the map to pieces in the inevitable wrestling match that would soon ensue.

Alba harbored no ill will against either of them. They were good, if very hard-headed, men. Before Captain Ignacio's unfortunate disappearance they had always got along and shared the role as his second in command. But it all changed once the captain was gone as they both were convinced they were his rightful successor. Which led to daily bickering and fights.

Neither of them was fit for the task though, according to Alba. Because neither of them possessed the natural charisma and leadership of Captain Ignacio. They weren't him, and they could never be.

She put down her bowl on the deck. Oliviero quickly ran up to lick the bottom of it, perhaps hoping to find some leftover ham pieces. When he found there were no such treats to find the feline instead threw a look towards the iguana's tail which twitched back and forth over the deck as the animal indulged in its turnip feast. Cautiously the cat reached out a paw to touch the tail.

The iguana turned its head and loudly wheezed at the cat. Oliviero jumped about a foot in the air before hiding under a bench. Not such a fierce jaguar now.

Alba approached the confused men by the map. Joe and Pedro were so wrapped up in the task of reading it that they didn't notice her presence. Pedro twiddled with a compass, perhaps trying to figure out what was up and what was down on the map, and Joe was bent over the map and stared intently at it from about an inch away. Perhaps hoping it would reveal its secrets to him if he just got close enough.

Curiously, his eyepatch was folded up and Alba could clearly spot a functioning eye under it. She had noticed that his eyepatch sometimes seemed to change eye and now her suspicions were confirmed. It was all a charade. Eye patches, just as peg legs, were badges of honor in pirate society and Joe must have decided to capitalize on that.

Over the men's shoulders, she peered down on the map. It was a rather big piece of parchment, with frayed edges and a sepia tone which indicated that it had been in the bottle for a while. Along the middle of the map, a ridge consisting of small dots ran, and on one side of it three bigger uneven shapes that looked like islands were painted. The shapes all had stars on them. From each star, a line was drawn, and all the lines met in a point in between the islands where an X was drawn.

Every self-respecting pirate knew what an X meant. X marked the treasure.

A skittering sound interrupted everyone's focus on the map. The iguana's green nose peeked over the table and soon it stood proudly on top of the map, guarding it like a treasure. The animal must have followed Alba and climbed the leg of the table to investigate what was happening. Iguanas were great climbers who often laid their eggs in trees so the table was no match for the creature.

"Ignacio!" Alba called out. "Get down!"

The animal turned towards her with a confused look on its face. If a lizard could look confused.

"Get off the map!" Alba emphasized, wondering if she needed to get a turnip again to lure the animal away. Luckily the ship was rich in turnips.

To Alba's surprise, the lizard obeyed her immediately. The animal scurried off the map, climbed down the table, and nestled itself between her feet. It almost seemed like it was scared that she was mad at it. Alba bent down and stroked the animal on the back slightly to ensure it she wasn't.

"You call the beast Ignacio?" Pedro asked. "Like the captain!"

"It reminded me of him. They both have red beards," Alba replied.

Joe straightened his eye patch, perhaps realizing that he was outing his ability to see with both eyes, and bent down to look at the creature. "It does look a bit like the captain," he agreed. "Perhaps our beloved captain somehow turned into a lizard!"

Alba rolled her eyes. "Don't be silly," she said. "This is just an iguana. There's nothing magical about it."

"Just keep it away from me," Pedro mumbled. "I don't want it to snap my other leg off. I lost my leg to a creature that looked a lot like it, but much bigger of course. A dragon. Have I told you about that?"

The stories about how Pedro lost his leg always changed. A swarm of blood-thirsty sharks. A raging bull. A deranged walrus. And now apparently a dragon.

But Alba knew the unexciting truth. Pedro was born without his lower right leg. He had told her that in hushed whispers one night after consuming too much rum. During his childhood, he had been mercilessly bullied for it and called a pirate. So once he had grown up Pedro had left his secure life as a merchant's son to actually become a pirate. And it turned out his lack of a leg actually gave him a leg up, pun intended, in his new career.

Joe saved Alba from suffering through another one of Pedro's exaggerated stories. "I think I know where this is!" he exclaimed and pointed on the dots in the middle of the map. "It's the Feather Islands. The small islands there are positioned in a feather-like line like this."

"Feather Islands doesn't have any bigger islands to the side though," Alba protested and nodded towards the bigger splotches on the map.

It seemed to her that something was missing from the map. It was too sparse. No landmarks, streams, or coastlines. There was no way to find the right destination with so little information.

"But it does look like Feather Islands," Pedro agreed. "Perhaps those other islands are just unknown."

Of course, Joe and Pedro had to choose this moment to agree on something.

"Islands that big close to the Feather Islands wouldn't be unknown," Alba pointed out.

Her words fell on deaf ears. The men had stopped listening and were instead busy planning the best route towards the decided destination.

"If we set sail now we can be there tomorrow," Joe said.

"I'll steer and you'll navigate," Pedro chimed in.

At least the common goal seemed to have encouraged the men to cooperate. So Alba decided to not make any further interjections. For now at least.