The Lark

This Story's Missing a Wishing Well

"Captain, sir!" The door to the cabin burst open. "We've caught something!"

Kris looked up his blue eyes sending lightning bolts to the man who dared interrupt his meeting. "You'll find the word...knock...would ring any bell of a common gentlemen."

The man frowned in confusion, eyes darting around the cabin to the other officers for an answer, or at least a clue.

Kris snorted. He'd be amused if he weren't annoyed. "But even Notre Dame is ignored by the deaf and daft."

Blushing, fidgeted awkwardly in the doorway. "Sorry, sir. Captain. Captain sir?"

"What?" He barked, waving an arm. "This had better not be about what we're having for dinner tonight."

"Orca," the first mate put in, wiping the drool off his chin. "After 6 months at sea, weeks of hardtack and rum I could eat a whole whale to myself."

"Save some for the rest of us," the second mate shifted, but his buggy eyes gleamed hungrily as he leaned his lanky frame forward in his chair. "It's been so long since we had meat onboard I'm beginning to see fish like a mirage in the desert, leaping out of the water. Teasing me."

"Appears I'm the only man among boys," Kris adjusted his belt, staring through the window that boasted a broad view of the ocean. "It's as if you've forgotten what we're on a mission for. The king sent us to discover what happened to his ships. On this particular route."

"What if we've missed it?" The first mate went on. "What if...we slipped into something...like the Bermuda Triangle?"

Kris gave him a scrutinous eye.

He went on, motioning as if telling a ghost story. "And we just keeping sailing and sailing and sailing...looking for something on the horizon, with nothing but the blink of the sun to look forward to?"

A room full of uncertain murmurs, shifting, and clapping boots were quieted by the captain. "It's that blinking sun that goes out every night our only assurance we're still well on the path. Otherwise would time itself not have frozen over?"

They nodded, giving in agreement.

"You can have all the meat you want, all the orcas you want." Kris looked out longingly at the ocean. "What real men crave has nothing to do with the belly, but another appetite altogether. The touch of a good woman...down under..."

Leers and grins and nods and cackling. They thought they understood so well.

The captain snarled, repulsed, "I'm not talking about your gluttonous whores, who'll whisper whatever you tell them to for a sixpence and a good time! I mean that one woman...above all else...the one who makes your heart stir. Your insides burn."

"You've left a woman behind then?" The second mate asked, leaning forward for an eager story time.

The captain shook his head, somewhat abashed. "She could not see things my way. I tried everything I could, short of marrying her. In the end, she looked worse off than I did. But I still had my dignity intact. And it will take a very special lady indeed to earn the rights of that."

"Here here!" The men cried, stomping and clapping and whistling in unison.

It were as if the messenger boy weren't there at all. His presence completely forgotten.

"If I had a lady, I'd show her my dignity," one of the lesser officers chortled.

"You mean if you had any!" The first mate came back. The others laughed.

The second mate continued, "His dignity was lost after he tried to jump ship for those sirens back there!"

"They weren't sirens! Sirens sing." He stood abruptly, mortified at becoming the butt of their joke. "They were women swimming under the sea!"

"Mermaids?" They guffawed again.

"I know what I saw!" He argued, but the cabin only quieted when the captain motioned to the messenger. "What're you still doing here?"

The messenger straightened. "Sir, we've...caught something."

"Yes, you said that." He raised an eyebrow, adjusting the cuffs of his shirt before grabbing his uniform coat from the back of the chair, swinging it around his shoulders. "Whatever do you mean?"

"It's...a woman, sir." He gulped.

The men almost started to laugh again, but the captain quickly hushed them. "She might've been a passenger from another ship that capsized."

"Captain, there hasn't been any sign of debris," the first mate put in.

"We haven't exactly been looking, have we?" He snapped his fingers, gesturing to the messenger. "Have every man on alert. We'll keep an eye out for any enemy vessels, debris, or survivors. Any sign of a wreck. Alert me of anything."

"And...the girl, sir?" He blinked.

The men all turned to look at him.

Kris nodded coolly, his boots thumping solidly against the creaking floorboards as he made his way top deck. "I'll take care of her."