Motley (#Wattys2016)

5: Capriccio

THREE YEARS AGO

Nori and Satoru stood on the deck of the Oxblood. Many planks were rotting, and many varying degrees of shabbiness were displayed on all parts of the ship. "You... you stole this? On purpose?" Satoru said weakly.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Nori told him proudly. "Okay, so maybe she needs a few repairs, but that should be easy to manage!"

"No wonder it was so easy to get this ship... Nobody wanted her in the first place!"

"Come on, Satoru! Where's your spirit of adventure?"

"I left it back on the docks, where I knew I wouldn't drown," Satoru said bluntly.

Nori rolled her eyes. "Don't be a sissy! And no need to be so damn blase about the whole thing. The important thing is, it floats."

Satoru looked around skeptically. "... Fine. But as soon as we get some money, we fix it up."

"Naturally. Hey, do we have any food below decks?"

"I think we have some bread or something, when I looked..." Satoru said, considering it. "Want to check? We might as well see what we're working with."

"Sure! Lead the way, good sir!"

"No, no, I couldn't, captain."

Nori raised her eyebrows in amusement. "Captain? What are you on, Satoru?"

"You got us into this mess, you ought to be the first one who gets arrested," Satoru explained.

Nori stared at him, not knowing wether to laugh or be annoyed. She settled with a shrug. "Fair enough." She led the way down into the cargo hold.

PRESENT DAY

The small island of Capriccio was in sights. Nori and Ryota were preparing sleeper missiles on opposite sides of the deck, due to their spat the night before. The rest of the crew had noticed the increase in tension and had all jumped to the same conclusion: they had a fight. Satoru had wisely decided to stay out of their way, but Reiko and Masa decided to try and settle the argument. "After all, a good battle strategy is in necessity of teamwork, and without our captain and our shipmaster getting along, our chances of a successful raid are statistically low," he told Reiko. A few well-chosen words from her fortunately shut him up.

"Ryotaaaaa," Reiko said, flouncing over to him. He glowered in reply. "Doesn't Nori's hair look nice and windswept today?"

He peered over to the other side of the boat, where Nori was conjuring sleeper missiles. She was so absorbed in her work that she didn't notice. He blushed and punched Reiko on the shoulder. "Butt out," he said.

But Reiko bravely pressed on. "Don't you think she wants to talk to you?"

"Nope."

"Are ya sure?"

"Yes."

"Are you really su-" She stopped mid-word when he shot her a death glare that made her wilt and she said, "on second thought, I think you're sure." She inched away awkwardly until she was ten feet away when Ryota finally stopped glaring.

Meanwhile, Masa worked on Nori. "Captain, may I have a word?"

"Sure, little glasses man."

"Listen. As I told Reiko, the best battle strategies are based off strong teamwork. Our successful raid of Capriccio depends on this. Therefore, I must advise you to work better with the rest of the crew. It is statistically low that we will raid Capriccio and take a sufficient amount of treasure if our captain refuses to work well with any single member of the crew. For instance, there would be communication issues, and perhaps you won't command their attention like you normally do. At the very least, you should be on speaking terms, or the lack of communication could be your downfall and we all would be arrested."