Happy New Year everyone! 

(№7.2)

The air cackled with bursting energy ever erupting. Remaining residues of lightning had been struck on Earth with galvanising power, leaving the air they touched barren. The sour rain they were drenched in to the core produced all together a perfume so fine and intense, with a particularity which couldn't pass for anything else, engulfing the stench of burning and frying electricity. Not a specifically pleasant one, but also nowhere seen anywhere else in this world.

Clouds in all nuances of grey to anthrazit, in various shapes, from stripes to balls to fog to cloudlets of the familiar cumulus, though the latter in rivalling majority, staggered over the profound black night sky, dulling the darkness, so it rather manifested to be a stormy, grey afternoon, rather than the darkest hour of the circadian cycle, where all living things rest and sleep to never meet eyes with those who continue to glide throughout the night, unbound by not many rules but one grander, predators eagerly befalling the living in their placid slumber.

The clouds collectively fined at the straight line of the horizon, overtowering the mighty shores near of civilised land, capsuling, separating the souls vegetating within borders, just so out of their reach. Only their partner in crime, the sea, licked soothingly in its dark black entirety, trying to take bits and parts of their armour away, more and more until the estuary of a bay was acceptably prepared to be used. Yet the sea didn't dare to stretch too far high in the sky to not let its gradually greedy hands touch and unite, as the consequences would only be slightly higher to be the bearer of toleration. Perhaps another fight, another battle, for which they were not properly equipped as of right now.

And as many limits are stomped and others are carried gone (coincidentally also by wind, the motor of such grey clouds), the ones most important are usually not influenced by the fluctuations of humane trends that regally anyway cease to exist when the forthbringer of its ideas fades away.

Oddly, with humans, it didn't seem to last long, perhaps sometimes even because of them. Conclusion of rules when death decided to arrange and orderly take care of things. Also an immortal regulation; All things are bound to find their ends. Normally, as the unbreakable rule announcing the end of everything and everyone, is bound, fixed, it's unironically also stating it will be a victim of its own sentenced ending one day. What an interesting day that might occur to be. Where all things will stop being finite, when the rule "All comes to an end" succumbs to its own fatality and yet again everything is deemed to last forever or everything won't exist simply as an object, since everything had been destroyed, by time, hence the ready explanation how prospectively speaking, there will be no one and not one thing to last (for nothing exists), so the rule is broken after all thanks to appliedly extreme opposite, feasting off each other in paradox.

Regardless of this paradoxical mistake, as long as both parties thrive and claim their existence, it's obvious that where the sky and sea are to cross paths, the overlap will only ever consist of carnage and bloodletting. The bodies will pile and the victor will make his triumph tediously known at the cost of the loser for centuries, until the scale is tipped off again.

Not that this hadn't already happened, matter of factly.

Theirs made their reasoning for attacking already crystal clear and that this time pinching their tail and licking the wounds waiting for the next clash of entities wouldn't be enough. Peace being discontinued for good, anyway a tentative, temporary resolution that might be maintained for the span of a human life. There were not human.

Because they had won this time, battle after battle, fight to struggling combat in a consensual war, they had made the strike that would still hurt, possibly also being the pitival, the important one, forbearing all those trailing in conclusion.

As he was regarding all the loose threads of possibility and ensured outcome, watching fiercely guard high above everything, one hand grasped firmly on the crows nest of a black ship making its way unhindered through the still agitated sea. Resulting in the rough, black wood to eventually cut his hand, considering the nacre white of bones under knuckle would show (which it didn't, fearing what his rage would provoke), the other holding tight on a bronze copper telescope, proving itself to be a useful tool in the nautical everyday-life.

He resented firstly getting one, exclaiming he didn't need one, as his sometimes misfortunate state already permitted him to be accoutered with perfect night sky vision, yet all bodies face limits, those only being nulled by the curation of mechanical equipment, compensating even the weakness(es) of the strongest creature. And the spray of fog and dispersed salt sent to the sky that gravely fell back on earth might impact even ​the most perfected eyesight. Occasionally, rather rarely, the humans had something reasonable and decent to provide.

Besides, he had less toes and fingers to count how many times he had been told he was old fashioned and one needed to keep up with the sake of times. Fine, if he had to religiously learn all the new appalling tricks humanity came up with, he'd do it. Such a waste of time though indeed...

Bright lightning flashed and briefly illuminated the colourless scene, as all dark creatures shortly flinched to get back safely into the shadows, albeit the light lasted no more than a human heartbeat and their high positions would once again be returned over to them.

He sent a distinctive glare of most sullen quality to the above. A bunch of cheating braggarts these creatures were.

Their sickening energy was everywhere. In the air, in their homes, the clouds, it was reflected in the distorted buzzing of the insects and even the ancient blades of grass sang about it, mumbling discomposedly from the shore, feeling uncomfortable with the ambiance. The most forgotten of the living raised its light voice to speak about the horror flatten its way to surface. If even grass was concerned, they all should be. He heard them from many miles, nearly apologetically. Having said this though, not for fearing about the lives of some plants in desperate need for a rainy shower, but rather for being sorry he was able to listen to their constant insufferable screeching, as annoying and exasperatedly comparable to the cracking and creaking when a tree was about to break in to half; A sensation that caused him to want to impulsively rip his ear buds out and feed them to the vultures.

Irritated by the worsening state of things, he shrunk the handy telescope into its easier portable form, narrowing his eyes in thought, pocketing the useful tool without feeling the cold echo of the metal on skin. Stepping back, the Captain allowed himself to feel the hard length of the second mast, resting in the space of his shoulder blades to relax and regard everything coolly. Scheming, planning, what move to do next. Gosh, even their smell was reeking and fired everywhere in between air molecules.

Last night took more of a toll on him than he would have liked to give away, not only to calm the restless, turbulent sea down, so they wouldn't capsize, then to not be drifted away by unending, unwavering masses and tons of waters only sparsely confined into courants, when he impetuously had ripped off his black coat and jumped into the sea, not fearing to drown really, but to be drifted away violently, up to reach land on the other end of the world. Hah, he was finding excuses for the deed he dreaded most to pay attention to, the sixth time of him "recruiting" a new part of his crew.

A horribly humble word for a horrible, messy act.

His treacherous dark eyes glanced sharply like bolting arrows at the mass of brown wood jolting on the water's surface, becoming more and more mere a shell of driftwood, as the hordes of infinite water happily toyed with its new game at hand and it would nag and bite and poke holes until the disintegration of the material would inexorably follow and the particles would sink to the ground or react to other compounds, gone forever. Such a beautiful fitting metaphor for what he did, nature's cruel way of action to reaction. An endless cycle.

He forced himself to shift his glare and to look at the blackest of black stains to dirty his normally polished smug deck, where another innocent life had bled out next to his feet and the only thing he could do was resolutely watch and do nothing, standing still as a statue, when death had feasted ravenously and filled its passionate hunger, exulting with unbearable joy. And after discovering the flawed incoherent paradoxical law of finiteness to infiniteness, it would still likely never be tamed nor its appetite be bridled. He remembered it clearly stepping back, pitless black eyes shining, moreover not unlike those who'd reflect back from a mirror, as death shoved himself forward to right another life to a reduced corpse, the light extinguishing gingerly and eyes becoming bland and unseeing. With a playful smirk and a wink, it dissolved into shadows promising to not be just too far gone, as death would resolutely follow the Harbingers of demise, the monsters roaming the seven oceans, the persecutors hitting and eternally punishing onto the grasp of humanity, until nothing would be left of their poor victims but their skeletons.

They were named the Skeleton Crew for a very good reason.

Death would always be manifested in their veins on some baser fundament, feeling it shift and rest for as long as time will be counted, always just an edge away.

Dying by a cut throat was abominable though, very bloody and violent, not a position feasible where one could shift comfortably without having two separate parts of skin rubbing, pinching, hurting.

It was in its entirety annoying, unfulfilling, wrong, the Captain thought regarding the happenings of the last decade, after they had commodated to mingle with this human. Perhaps he was just fascinated by a soul as pure as hers, as untainted as hers. Or he had just hungered to claim it like the tons of others he had and he still would claim until the course of time would relapse which to him it never would, never ceasing to be incredibly annoying and debilitating.

Not that her soul would matter much now.

Just to drain it off; The Crew nowadays knew not much of sparing, not to mention mercy, yet he would have catered to her end in a much more humane way and a broken neck was very easy to heal after infliction. She was lost and doomed after a first glance, but the wide array of various plethora, as long as the outcome would be the same, could be altered and manipulated to one's liking.

Although much more important tasks were at hands, he reorganised his priorities. The foul rotting bastards, hiding sheeplesly in the clouds (to not smell so badly probably) could wait, with their sickening green flashes and mobility on the cost of their horses with wings, animal abuse a common practice among the cloud inhabitants.

It was cruel and useless to fate an animal to felicity, regarding how most of them were pretty stupid and ruled by the very basic three needs (feed, sleep and procreation). They were also not harmful and hideous because they wanted to, due they had no will, no intent, no duly purpose sought out by only themselves.

Reflecting the last 120 moon cycles, were the winds the culprits to have always brought their sail back to her, or had he so willingly orchestrated her end? Had his first mate's constant cries to revisit and play again their fine tunes for the brute dacians who couldn't differ between the stale clunking of metal and volitionally notes in purposed ranges perhaps something to do with the conclusion of last night? Unwillingly protruding his mind with thoughts all shattering about her? Had the absence of really any emotion lit his heart by the first taste he had of it? Passion and caring burned not like an inferno - as he hardly had anything to give now that could burn in such intensity - but rather as a kindred little flame who bore its way into his mind and won his hardly-gained impression and amazing captivity? The memories of another alike...

For her eyes - in contrast to the many villagers he and his crew passed who had only hatred and anger to give towards them, thus one of the many reasons sprung forth of their elaborate suffering and their yearning to not deny it to them - hadn't shone with any of that loathing, that disliking, that thick ignorance of uncultivated folk. Her eyes bearing only the resemblance of pure Affection, spoken only from family or lovers.

Admiration.

Kindness.

Bliss.

Happiness in its rawest.

Oh so delicious. Deliciously fleeting. And easily corrupted. 

He snorted.

He ruined it.

They shouldn't have come.

She should have drowned in the Sea.

And her eyes were as blue as the faint light of his ship, exactly as he had stored away the memories of his...

No, no, no! Put your emotions aside. Don't even think about him. And his eyes, a colour perhaps very common in all the right places he hadn't yet desperately looked to sight them and apologise to.

At last contained and put to show for him whenever he pleased.

Her dying and piercing eyes focusing only on him last night, had stirred unpleasant fragments of a boy that died, a boy he wanted to forget, easily impressionable, arrogant and deceived in the end, fairly deserved though, betrayal meriting betrayal.

Maybe they were all sinners, with greedy minds and hungry hearts, with longing claiming to be the mighty accelerator of life. Especially them, deprived creatures never having a huge enough fill, always needing more and more and more.

He shoved his hand through his black hair in despair, a slipped, reckless gesture, rather humane in disaccord with reality.

And how his heart spoke of integrity, rummaging now, as his own strings were caught by the wind, humming to an unknown tune of something as atrocious as ... Hope. Maybe he could win the war and claim the price he had sought for several centuries now.

The boy who tragically passed had also always been hopeful and ever optimistic, so it was only logical to cleanse and destroy every single part of him, but apparently he wasn't that thorough, missing spots that had grown on without his steady supervision.

Stupid.

Put your emotions aside, son.

Uncunningly, he jumped out of the crow's nest as impulsive and vulnerable as he let himself feel and met the deck with a mediocre pang, panels vibrating under his steps.

At least now his avaricious heart would feel comforted in the spirit she would be incapable of leaving him. Forever.

Delightful.

It wasn't like he had other problems to solve at hand, observing the complete obvious.

Gather weapons, gather strength, bestow plagues and scourges on the way when it seems affordable, attend the feast that must be visited periodically every seven years, a tribute for yet another set of gods having it out for him, this time thinking it would bring slow redemption, when in verity conjure nothing but poor, pinching thoughts of yet another person he had failed. Another person it hurt unbearably to think about, even more so, as he hadn't done it in decades.

A slight tremor not visible for the average perception erupted through his tired hand as he grabbed the rail with fierce force. He looked at his own flesh and shuddered with grim anticipation. Other images of the night they were doomed afflicted him with someone else, someone who had shuddered like this too, someone he wanted to forget just as desperately.

Ah, that might explain the foul sentiment of the day.

He smiled darkly without teeth, fixating the shores separating one world from another as the rational explanation more and more proved true on the apparent superficial level of understanding, a problem even existent for the living and humorously unliving.

They were hungry.

They were to feast.

How long has it been? Not for a lengthy time, but much never sufficed.

Explaining the hovering, wary ambiance on his ship for once.

How quivers of humanity would slip through the cracks and burst out to the surface, jolly, bonny, untamed and unfazed, erupting and bubbling vibrant, elucidating how his mind was attuned to focus on one bare thing.

Good, experiencing his irrational intrusive thoughts was only a mere inconvenience caused by meal deprivation.

That would easily be fixable.

He stopped smiling, gazing intently at the lower deck.

Nah, scratch that.

It would be hell.

It would be traumatic.

It would hurt.

This was a matter rather equipped for crying than smiling.

And he felt a defiant pang of sorry.

Ostensibly, it's one of those nights.

The first time had always been like this.