Threshing Floor

What a Croc!

She ran with no goal between the trees, desperate to find some way back to her ship, to her embattled crew. One gnarled trunk blended into the next, one leafy canopy indistinguishable from the next. Every second, every step seemed an eternity that separated her from the battle she needed to get back to. She refused to stop, refused to give in to despair. She would run until her legs could give no more. There had to be an end to this endless orchard of trees and she was determined to find it.

A sound began to intrude on her consciousness as she ran aimlessly. It slowly grew from a whisper until it was a rush of sound that could not be ignored. The rush of water, barely confined to Its course, gradually became the focal point of her experience, something novel in the unending march of identical trees. The mistress of the Syren thought herself an expert on the sound of flowing water, but with each step, she became less and less sure of its origin or, really, its meaning. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere simultaneously.

She stopped for a moment and focused. Aimless effort rarely yielded fruit, she knew this. There must be a goal, a purpose to her exertion, if she hoped to see results. So she stopped and leaned against one of the ubiquitous trunks and closed her eyes, attempting to make sense of what she was hearing. If she closed her eyes, the seemingly constant, steady crash of water started to coalesce into a pattern. Waves! She heard waves. Waves meant there was an ocean. An ocean could be navigated, she had to be on one of the countless islands that peppered the waters around Bilgewater. She was close to home, close to rejoining her ship and the men who counted on her to get them safely through the smoke, flame and whistling death that had fallen on them like a late summer hurricane.

A few more seconds of deep breathing and her senses locked in on the direction she was sure held the exit to her leafy prison. She took off at a run, dodging the soldiers of her forest jailors and suddenly broke through the cover of the interlocked branches overhead and on to a white sand beach and skidded to a stop when she realized she wasn't alone anymore.

Halfway down the pristine, porcelain strand was an elevated chair about the height of two tall men with an oversized red and white umbrella extending out from the top. Standing in its shade was a small group of women, talking and laughing, some drinking out of coconuts through brightly colored tubes stuck into them. Further down the beach and into the water she could make out more female figures of all body shapes and skin tones, blondes and brunettes.

But what grabbed the eye and held it was the toothy, green-skinned terror in the chair, holding court over the scene. Even at this distance she could hear it laugh and call to one of the girls. Instead of crying out in fear, the woman smiled and saluted the man shaped thing on the chair with her drink. He flexed one of his heavily muscled biceps and laughed again, sounding like several tons of gravel cascading down a stone slope.

The bizarre sight held her attention so firmly that she never noticed another group approaching quietly from behind her until a tall blonde and a shorter, muscular brunette caught her arms in tight grips. Various others she couldn't see pressed up against her back and propelled her toward the center of the gathering ahead of them.

"Ton-Ton!" the brunette called out with a sweet voice that belied the ironlike grip she had on Sarah's upper arm. "Babe! I think we found a new guest for the beach party!"

The veteran captain and pirate gasped in horror as the crocodilian head rotated around to fix her gaze. Two and a half feet of closely spaced bony knives parted in amused surprise and the rattling rocks voice sounded again.

"A red head! We don't have one of those! What are you waiting for? Someone get her a drink."

Several girls ran off quickly back to the tree line, presumably to find a fresh coconut and fill it with God knows what concoction.

"Welcome to the party, my dear! Please be at ease, I may have been known in a former life as the Butcher of the Sands, but I find this vocation much more appealing."

He stood up and spread his arms to the crowd below. "Let's make our new friend welcome and see that she never wants to leave!"

The return calls of approval caused Sarah's heart to sink and the distance back to her ship stretched out to the unseen horizon.