(№2.2)

As the humans only continue to fail in the long history of men, no one believed the story of an anonymous blue ship with Death at its heel, not before encountering and dancing the waltz of death themselves, when it was too late, and Destruction was the aftermath.

'Navis mortis', was the term in the Roman Empire, used as a curse and hushed only when it was absolutely necessary soon after, frisson reverberating through the masses whenever it must be muttered.

In the first three years after their first concert, the Skeleton Crew eliminated three whole towns, as they didn't like the flaw of human civilization invading the beautiful countryside with their dirt and tainted cabins, filth thrown in their home, the powerful Sea and woods decimated, trimmed for intended construction of more dwellings yet.

Of course, nobody remembered these cities to be there in the first place, as this was the whole and complete meaning of elimination.

The emperor on the apex of chains, ruling at those times – many actually at these times, for one was like the other, totally indistinguishable or peculiar in character – ordered a whole search party on the Sea to find and get rid of the members housing on the ship entirely, whilst munching himself on a sheaf of grapes, fanned by a scarcely dressed slave-girl, fat belly commodiously draped on cinnamon-tinted cushions with a deviating stray of his hand, the affair already dismissed and off the mind. Only after six months of desperate searching, detecting something one should better leave off untouched, his wife found him dead in his chambers, poisoned with belladonna, eyes open and whitening yet to become complete nacre glossy beads, black lips formed into a conspiratorial 'o', alike the utter astonishment engraved about his impending death, upon prying the truth from its testing cage. The ruler two steps ahead of any foe taken by surprise of something he'd never be capable of sharing with the world now.

Unusual in this affair was the fact that the previous evening, he informed everybody with a thoughtful expression he would take a swim under the full moon in the Sea, although they had fairly progressed into the depths of autumn and the water was freezingly cold, currents unpredictable and getting bolder at the nights' expansion.

And when they found and examined him in scrutiny, dead he was dry as drier.

And when the notes were revealed to the eye of day and the culprit figured out, still ironically far fetched from getting captured and punished for deigning such indignity put on their king.

In a dark, foreign scribble matching the hue of red blood, someone smeared a message on his skin resembling much like the symbols they used to express in their native tongue. Notes, they were notes all over his body, tiny but defiant, telling them about a piece of music, prickly and invisible, looked over.

Theirs. Their melody.

Apparently, the rules known to the Skeleton Crew weren't applying anymore, for the demons would never leave their ship, or so it had been daftly assumed. The bulky, fat fingers of the emperor were never crafted to create such tiny art, leave alone this crashing, dazzling masterpiece on his cooled skin a pure canvas.

They stepped foot on their sacred earth and the people had never even noticed the arrival to begin with. The rules were abandoned and trodden to dirt and anything seemed horrifically in the realm of possibility.

People whispered that they would destroy everything and everyone coming in their way to stop them from fulfilling their deadly mission, their destiny, as if this little roman emperor would really be menace to them.

When in reality, they only killed him for fun. Unadulterated and raw, pure fun, out of simple leisure. Because they could and had nothing better at hand and he was awfully stepping on their nerves.

Marking a clear boundary separating them and humans. That was apparently hard to comprehend, their lack of mission and guidance, when all they really did was decimate the overpopulated cities and put emperors in their place, occasionally with the prospect of imminent, unstoppable, brutal death.

And after they caused a gigantic blizzard in the middle of August in Greece – where legends were essentially born – the whole Europe south coast knew about their existence and feared when it was time they paid a visit, the worst case being, that one shall suffice. 

A lot of mysteries started to vine around them, such as where the boat would touch the coast and winged feet met the soil, dark belladonna would sprout, another trap at daytime, whispering wispily and connivingly to honest foragers plucking alongside the way, attempting harmony, decoying with their tainted gloomy beauty and shine to put those gorgeously black oily fruits in their mouth to die a most horrible, suffering death.

Another myth was rather concerned about the cast of the Crew, merely the Captain of the ship, their leader, if there was even one.

In Greece, people thought him to be an offspring of two Gods, Nyx and Thanatos, the goddess of the Night and the god of Death bearing a son to inflict and wield the portable apocalypse, the deadliest combination who recruited other divine descendants to bring terror and horror upon the human world, released from all godly assistance and worthy conduct.

The roman on other hand thought this to be a challenge, to prove their faith to their varied Gods and prepared eagerly for a war that did not come, as in wanting to fight the Skeleton Crew, you needed to find them at first and they were not quite fervent for a battle with opponents beaten in the span of a single night. They didn't want to be caught amidst an army of moronic men they had to finish off all at once, when doing it one by one was much more pleasurable. Tearing them apart from all angles, until the entire Empire was crushed. 

Which was generally speaking impossible, as they only came when you didn't expect them.

Come on, otherwise the myth would have been a monotonous bore.

In Germany, people at the coast disappeared in huge crowds to leave the cursed sea and start a new life in the midland, somehow creating an entire movement of rearranging migration and groups of tribes, used as a mark by men to divide epochs.

That was fine with the Crew, as that meant lesser people to terrorise and more time focusing on precise punishments.

These poor villagers had no fathomable idea, no concept that other foreign deities would live midland, hiding and thriving in man's rows but acting far subtler than the Skeleton Crew, hence the evident lack of fear or awareness.

But here comes the odd thing: Yes, people were horrified in anticipation to their next arrival, when the blue ship once anew would approach the shores, practising their magic via black music, conjuring up a magnificent disaster hidden in a masterpiece of carefully placed notes and instruments not known on Earth. Yet in truth, the people wanted to be wrecked, destroyed, tantalised and satisfyingly torn apart, people's hearts longed to be spelled once again, to be caught in the macabre, lethal dance of Death, to feel mystical and captured in another world, the supernatural world.

Yes, the humans whole-heartedly wanted this cruel ship to come, they wanted to thrive and dance and lose themselves in the music, even if it would only be for spare hours, but that shot of unfiltered delight, the throbbing, thrilling kick of bliss, dancing under the moonlight with a blue feast-ship innocently watching and cutting saturnine night by blue rays, only to suffer a horrific death.

It was in human's nature to enjoy what could kill them.

What eventually would.

How epic the sound of it really.

They wanted some part of magic to be real, as over the course of time, they might believe the Gods to be real, to live on a very particular mount to judge the humans, live as they do or wherever else, but everyone in truth, deep down knitted in conscience and imagination, believed it otherwise, believed them not to exist, an entire construct wept and spun around to forsake those battling against the stream of commonness, trapping them nonetheless, encircled by default and caught in the system.

Mere a medium you painted how you prefer, a picture so perfect of someone you could believe in. Perhaps love and simultaneously be proud of, indulge.

On other hand, the Skeleton Crew, or 'Navis mortis', skøre ente, jugement de Dieu or however they might be called are in fact real. They were seen, they were spotted, and the music had to be no prank of any kind, but the song of angels, bulking their wings to provoke evil escapades, real and divine beings dwelling next nonetheless to whatever they bestowed.

Or are they not? To be or not to be, a very wonderful sentence Shakespeare once stated in that very philosophy discussion he once held at university that just may be stating it perfectly.

Or correct enough.

What really existed was the constant fear and lust of the people to hear songs captured out of this world, even taking in the risk it could be for the last time, hallucination betimes acceptable over the real and thwarting the progression of normalcy.

Of course, there was but one exception in the entire history of the Skeleton Crew and human interaction that told the complete opposite.

A girl for a change that wasn't spiking the fever of fright, someone who willingly would die to know the truth, on the contrary to simply numb one up to perish craving godly serenity, on the contrary preferring uncomfortable truth than cosy lies.

Who wasn't horrified her life could end by the mere sight of the ship, notes tangling her thoughts to turbid knots reflecting back rough insanity, ruin every bit of health and opening the door brightly for unceasing lunacy. In honesty, she wasn't afraid, for she had not much to lose.

Or maybe she was and learnt how to disguise her blatant thoughts. Maybe she discovered how to let her heart not feel limited by emotions and equity in the face of epiphanies to conceal her body's gestures and only having her one goal in mind and nothing else.

Call her a hypocrite, a fool whatever you want to establish your faltering courage, do as you please. She won't mind.

Or maybe she will and let you pay for it.

She and alike you had no idea being a part of a bigger, grander ploy of retribution and freedom, the very trigger times had changed and history erased, beware with thought, we'll get to that in a second.

The girl lived in a small hamlet at the western shores of the Black Sea, where people long felt as safest as they could be while living near a watersite, as it was almost impossible to enter the sheltered Sea without anyone catching a glimpse of you at the very small entry disemboguing to the great portals of Constantinople and crossing the sea of the greek's territory fitted with islands hardly went unnoticed.

The foolish, indolent people were to be proven fatally wrong, when the ship appeared at northern shores near what today we call Turkey to let a sudden earthquake finish a few thousand conglomeration of humans off and it was now only a stone's throw away to sail the black Sea, the ship guided by indiscernible thread right at the arms towards the girl that'd either break or remake them.

Said girl was the daughter of the healer in town and gained some decent respect from other citizens as her father was the one equipped and skilled enough to tend to their mortality in darkly wan moments, when weakness took over and prayer could no longer reach their cold bodies, at times only needing to delve in spend comfort by warmed words and a decent word, a touch here and there, crushed herbs sweetened by the faithful aid of turnip sugar, proposing a blanket sincere and earnest, so they must not be present themselves when their souls dipped out of the earthly realm eventually to long for the abyss.

Nevertheless the reciprocated respect and sane distance kept, she was still a girl, so as much worth as a handful of sand would be and as useful added to the misery in this part of history, purposefully only born to be wed atwain showered in gifts and fruitful amendments and perhaps the option strengthen the bloodline with a few sons or other daughters bound by the same fate.

She digressed from dealing with it in-depth, rather spending her preserved and merry childhood in imagining the wonderful things she could accomplish, unobstructed to what others restricted her to.

The citizens hated and despised her deferential father to the core, at times where his skills weren't so fervently asked for, as her father married an elderly woman that only succeeded to bear one child – that had to be a girl – before the sand poured to the bottom in the sand clock fully.

They constantly told him he couldn't live in such shame with only a girl as a legacy to the world, with his healing powers seemingly dropped from the gods and he would do better to abandon his marriage or have an affair with other younger women that could gave him a strong and beautiful son, one that would be worthy of honouring him. Such acts of perfidious perfidy weren't equivalent to a singular-timed happenings of natural marvel, encountered as often as the replete moon rises.

Still with an evil glance, he shut their mindless blabbering during their treatments off and stitched wounds a little too tight, almost prying the skin open anew, convulsed by tricking flames of his flickering ire, letting the person bite their lip to blend out the pain.

It was true, he wasn't so fond of his domestic situations, but yet loved his wife dearly – it had been a coupling of love and made by their choosing which was very rare at those times. Besides, the healer was a member of the long bloodline of the Daciens, an ancient tribe that flourished centuries ago on the same land as he does now somewhat, before the Romans attacked their fertile land and the Daciens – being conceited, persuaded of their capability very and quite bloodthirsty in combat - attempting to win a losing game, only to be felled by the grim warriors superior after decades of war, their land stolen, ruled at last by an emperor of Roman choosing.

Eventually, the Roman Empire was shattered, foundered due to its tiring longevity, their people temporarily freed of the Roman evils to be suppressed by foreign men of strange origin, suffering now continued, simply under a different name. At least definitive now to protect the Dacien's legacy, for as long as their bloodline continues.

Dacien men were proud men that did not wander off to any women they'd find but stayed once they were married, bride stealing a custom generously imported as tradition by both their attackers.

And he intended to keep this promise, promised and mended they'd be, till death do them part.

The mother of the girl worked even at such high age as a counsellor where people could seek answers to their minor medicinal problems and silly aches or if they just needed someone to listen, to find a psychological, natural reason for their misfortune or simply the calming scent of crushed rose petals and herb ointment smeared and massaged into their skin, whilst all worries melted away by candle light.

At first, everyone despised and called her out to be a witch sent from hell to tempt them in what she called "sessions".

The woman was quite intellectual and was offered a sound education when she was young, finessed by her loving husband almost matching his own, so idly awaited the people to come obliging and bite down their inscrutable pride to be treated by her finally.

As her husband only treated active wounds or acute maladies, only approving patients when it was a situation equally demanded for by life and death, the villagers decided to depend on the woman, only to be surprised by her knowledge, spontaneous thought and quick study.

The couple worked as a team, a dream duo, when life was not that harmonic.

But the situation involving their only child to be a girl was still complicated, as her father made good money with his treatments (it was completely inappropriate to give a woman money for her service, so people sometimes paid her husband in good will, if they considered their unpaid session guided by a female hand to disruptive to ignore), yet to whom should such an amount go when the man inevitably passes?

People talked about it constantly, were never contented with solutions and thought by what her mother did and how she acted, no one would ever agree to marry her, such wild child even with the premise of money and treasures, for it was on her husband to take in the role of an heir and be rich beyond conception.

In time, the village breathed out, relaxed as the girl became with each autumn much prettier and prettier, abled to claim every man she wanted.

As upbringing decides mostly the fate of every human and her mother spent days righting poultices and touching healing beverages rather than really raising her appropriately, the girl never even thought to confront herself with such dire, dry, obnoxious matter.

She was neither interested in learning how to cook or to play with dolls but to read, even though being still a part of the smallest bunch of children. Considering the cooking, she kept saying for as long as her mother gladly fed her sufficiently, there was not the need existing for her to learn.  

Her mother once in a while tried half-heartedly to teach her, as it was an important skill for a woman knowing how to cook or sew and not the way around seaming yet her daughter ran faster away as any shooting star to appear and disappear on the night sky by the simple mentioning of such activities.

The girl would sneak into her father's office where he kept all his documents about medical achievements, and some written down tales he gathered from all around the land, notes and remarks on how to become only better.

You might consider now thinking that only very few people in the mediaeval times could read and lesser could write information down, but this was nothing to stop her father from inventing his own letters, his own scripture he taught his daughter as he wanted her to teach it to her children in the future.

The father constantly thought about the rise of the Dacien people through his daughter and became very much content on thinking about the future and spinning tales how it would be exactly like in the old days. He desperately fought for the idea to work, being delusional in another sense where not even mean men would dive that profound depths, being convinced he could raise a dead empire. But let him have at his fantasy, for soon no longer he wallows in the luxury of the cleaved past and future.

No one ever saw much of a glimpse of that child, as she hid in the forest while her parents worked and read all day and tried to teach her how to implicate the letters of her father with such ambition it bordered on frequent obsession offering greatness as much as it did clumsy death.

Once the girl knew every book in her father's office and could repeat its contents with closed eyes, whisper the texts before falling asleep, she bored of it and focused elsewhere duly.

She needed to keep her mind busy, as this narrow-minded sight of the people in the village annoyed her as much as the constant attempts of neighbours to form her into something she didn't want to become, she'd contest to pry away from them like evil-spirited creatures.

Ah, what tribute pays the certain individuality of each youth, ensuring to be all peculiar in particular ways, cutting out their parents and the people meaning to spring to aid which proved unwished as it would be futile. A path taken fully to end is road ridden for nothing.

Well, in her case, the villagers did act quite annoyingly.

That was the summer the Skeleton Crew paid their first visit to the town.

The winds had already widely rumoured of their fateful arrival, but nevertheless, the villagers hurried down to the small cliffs, for humans as few learned even from their own faults, could hardly cram from errors made by others, listening to the soft notes clinging crystal clear through the air, the Sea calm and tranquil and sleepy as never, undertone in beautiful pearly silver, the waves brewed to bevels and bundles, foam light as clouds flushed neatly at the shores.

The air was pure and perfumed with raw magic, only summer air could feel like most softest silk on skin. The night was opened to possibility, that special feeling the air around you took only under the influence of booze or the prospect of a lover chosen for one night.

The people watched in awe and danced and turned around themselves, enjoying the delicate sounds, toppling around and about.

The girl had heard the sounds before anybody else could and rushed through the woods to the plateau of lifted cliffs to see the source of such majestic transcendence for herself.

In between bushes and trees, she felt the safest, with nature surrounding to protect her from any harm.

She didn't feel the need to join the villagers in their group hugs, and awkward dances of stiff limbs from working the fields from day one to day seven, as she didn't want to be suddenly engaged to a man she didn't know, an attempt failed to send her wed some stranger only the last passed couple of days ago.

Here, alone in the shadows standing and watching, she felt like it was her private concert, seemingly playing just for her having to spare only eyes for her.

In one of her father's books, she would read several myths collected about the Skeleton Crew carried here by cracked tongues visiting and dull eyes filling anew with tears by the mere addictive recap of old visits and she too was at once captivated, fascinated, contained. It was a whole other matter actually sensing the longing for one's self, now feeling the hair rise up her skin in couched danger, a corner tugged astray and having her dissolve with huge, alighted eyes, into mellowness with her heart torn apart, for it was so beautiful, it hurt terribly and again was so wonderful, because it harmed her in ways she thought not plausible. In her years to come, she would not forget this first time, the seal breaking upon crushed naivety, the sounds reaching her ears which could make her only weakened to hear more and more and more.

Curiosity was greatly touched and seizing her quickly, the inquiry burning up in her, recycled as it was used for centuries on end.

What ... was this? What tool, what thing could create such longing rising deeply buried in her chest? Making her heart beat falter? Her open mind cloudy and swooning?

Who were these members of temptation handling it so aptly and aimed like an arrow prone to pierce its target? The skeletal melodies, the songs they played she was the most curious about, alike the musicians themselves. 

The girl felt drawn to it how flies are to treats, the villagers to break her privacy and the tide and ebb concocted with the moon in conspiracy.

She watched and listened to her private concert, swearing she'd feel one of those creatures on board observing her, curious as to what would happen, for the need of which to arise hung limply and thickly in the air.

The future of everyone was at stakes, albeit no one felt the imperative to say it. A milestone to be reached, turning the events and perhaps fending centuries of misery and generations of pain and restricted ire, or it would only make everything much worse.