Cyrus

“You’re unfit to be captain!” One of my subordinates shouts at me. I look above his head (‘e’s a short fella ain’t ‘e?) on purpose, pretending to be searching for the poor fool questioning my leadership skills.

“Why, who could tha’ be?” I ask no one in particular, my voice amused.

“Me, you homosexual blubbering buffoon!” Ahhh, so that’s why I’m unfit. I do wonder how he found out though. I look down and act surprised to see him standing there.

“Ahh! Wha’ an adorable child we ‘ave ‘ere!” I say, pinching his cheeks with my artificial arm.

“Argh! I challenge you to be the head of this ship!” He roared up at me. I look down at him and pop an eyebrow.

“You wan’ to be Lily?” I asked, gesturing over to the lady carved onto the front of the ship.

His Chest puffed out and his face boiled red with anger. “No, you fool!” He shouts. “You know exactly what I mean! I challenge you to a duel! The winner will be captain of this ship!” He bellows. I wipe away at the spit he had gotten on my cheek.

“A’right mate! Arm wrestle i’ is!” I declare, pointing to the designated table of shame on the deck. This happened more often than I’d like to admit. The man paled.

“What! No! Unfair!” The man spat. I look at him, my eyes wide as if I were confused.

“Are you to say ya can’t ‘andle a sim’le arm wrestle? Why, than ‘ow can I trust ya as cap’ain?” I ask, hands on hips. “Why lad, ‘ow’ it unfair?” I ask him.

He gritted his teeth, his eyes darting to the other crew members who had come to see what the commotion was. They whispered to each other and smiled. I swear I could hear one say, ‘this again’. I grinned down at the tiny, frustrated, man below me. I could handle losing this member of my crew. Not cute at all.

“Fine.” he gritted through clenched teeth.

“Why, tha’s the spiri’!” I shout, slapping him on the back with my mechanical arm. The man winced, and glared up at me. I quite enjoyed towerin’ over him. I guided him towards the table, and he was clearly upset by the arm still resting on his lower back.

“I’ll make sure a disgusting thing such as yourself finds it’s place.” he grins at me, as he sits down across the oak wood ‘table’ (in reality it was an unused barrel). I smile back at him.

“You do you, boo.” I say sweetly, holding my clockwork arm out. He gapes at it.

“W-what? You can’t possibly be using that arm!” He shouts. I look at him, pretending to be confused.

“I’m no’ allowed to use my left arm?” I ask him. He growls, and I sigh. “You’re left handed anyways right? I’m a righ’ie as i’ is sir, you’d be a’ an even bigger disadvantage.”. I point out to him. I am met with yet another growl. Is he a shipmate or a dog…?

He mutters something I pretend not to hear. “Fine.” He grumbles. My, my, his vocabulary is very limited. He grasps my hand tight fisted, as if that were supposed to cost me any pain. Yes, very smart this one here is.

“Callum!” I call out. One of the members steps out, a young dark skinned lad ambles towards the table. He stands beside us nervously, new member, I think to myself.

“Yes’ir?” He asks. I silently mope to myself. I don’t like being called sir. I’m not an old man. And this one IS cute…

“Care to be referee?” I ask, smiling up at him. He clears his throat.

“Of course,” He manages, and I’m about to smile wider when he adds, “Sir.” Damn. He placed his hand over our two clenched ones. “Three. Two. One. Go!” As he says go he lifts his hand and the short angry dwarf across from me starts pushing. I yawn.

“Oh! ‘Ave we star’ed?” I ask. A few crew members chuckle as the short man glares even harder at me, and a vein nearly pops off his forehead as he adds more force. I shove my arm down with- I admit, more force than was needed.

The barrel breaks as our clenched fists hit the wood, and I see a look of agony flash across his features as he- Well. Flew overboard. That um, was not intended. Entirely. The crew ran over to the edge of the ship and leaned over the railing.

They weren’t sure to hope he had landed in the water, as the man could not swim (horrible pirate, I must say). Or on the doc, as he would’ve landed head first. It was not, a low drop. They winced at the sight of a floating body.

“Damn!” I cried out, “It’s broken!” I shout. Callum looks at me in suprise.

“I’m pretty certain that’s a human! Not an ‘it’!” Callum cries out. I look up at him, eyebrows scrunched together, confused.

“Wha’?! No’ ‘im!” I call out. I motion down at my arm, and he winces at the misshapen hunk of mech. “This! Vic’s gonna bloody kill me!” I shout, raking my left hand through my spiky auburn hair.

“Oh. Are you headed out then sir?” He asks me, his eyes occasionally glancing down at my mech arm.

“I’ll ‘ave tuh.” I mope. I’m not looking forward to the tongue lashing I’d surely receive. Third time this week. I gaze down at my arm, getting lost in self pity. Callum clears his throat to snap me back to reality. “Ye?” I ask.

“Um, then I’d like to inform you Conrad and I will be heading out this afternoon, sir.” He says. I wave him off.

“Very well. Jus’ don’ go dissapearin’” I joke. His lips twitch upward, and he glances down at his feet, before glancing back up at me.

“I’ll try Sir.” He laughs, before getting ready to walk away. I call out to him.

“Callum!” I shout. He looks back at me.

“Yes Sir?” He asks.

“Call me Sir again, and I’ll throw yeh overboard!” I smile. He smiles back.

“‘Course Sir!” He taunts, hands behind his back as he walks away. I laugh, revelling in the fact that Victoria can’t yell at me yet. I sighed, standing up to leave. I look over the edge of the boat. “Someone go an’ grab the body. I’s ‘ard to explain corpses to fishermen.” I call out to my men, walking away to go.

I opened the door to the Perrigon Clockwork Repair and hear the all too familiar door chime. I take a deep breath, taking in the smell of leather and oil. This area of the shop was small, the only thing in it was a long counter and shelves full of gears and metal parts, and yet it still managed to be a mess. I heard shuffling from the back rooms as Victoria walked out, her goggles on, covering her eyes, and a wrench in hand. I instinctively hid my broken arm behind my body as she pulled off her goggles and let them drop around her neck.

Victoria had wavy, lilac, hair, which she had cut short and shaved off a small bit above her right ear (much to my dismay). She wore a loose white shirt, which she always had rolled up her arms. She had red and maroon striped leggings, which were stuffed into knee high black boots.

“Cyrus?” She smiled, leaning over the counter. “This is the third time this week. I hope nothing went wrong?” She interrogated, narrowing her eyes.

“Ahaha, no shenanigans. Nothin’ wron’ a’ all.” I say, glancing to the side awkwardly, pulling my arm even farther behind my back. She seemed to smell the utter crap I was spewing.

She gritted her teeth and jumped over the counter roughly grabbing my broken mech arm. She gasped out loud when she saw the state it was in. “My baby!” She cried, fawning over it.

“Why thank you V-” I begin, touched.

“Not you, you blubbering moron! My precious mech arm!” She snapped, pulling off my long teal coat. The sleeve on my right ended shortly for the mech arm. “Come one! Off with it!” She urged, trying to get to remove said arm. She led me into the back room, which was even messier than the front room.

Piles and piles of metal gears, sheets, arms, legs, wires, tubes and many other things littered the floor and surrounding shelves and tables. She set me down on a wooden crate and grabbed a wrench from the pouch at her hip.

I reached under my shirt from the top, to remove the piece of leather that kept the mech arm on my actual bit of arm, which I had dubbed ‘Stubby’. I handed it to her, while sitting on the crate. I waved Stubby around, I didn’t usually see him until I went to bed. I will admit, I wish my shirt had a left sleeve for the simple reason of me wanting to see it hang off.

She took a look at the poor thing, while I swung my legs around kicked the crate I was sitting on. “Tch, what’d you do, to get the poor thing all banged up this time?” She asks me, while doing whatever it is she does at her workbench.

“A simple arm wrestl’ is all.” I say innocently. She glares at me, wrench in hand.

“Do not lie to a person with a tool box.” She threatens, gesturing over to the saws.

“I may ‘ave go’en carried away... “ I trail off.

“How so?” She asks, looking back at my arm.

“I um. Broke The Table O’ Shame.” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. She raises an eyebrow.

“It explains the bits of wood here.” She says, shaking it out. “But it doesn’t explain why you lied. What else happened?” She asked.

“...Nothing…” I say. She narrows her eyes at me.

“What. Did. You. Do?” She says. I sighed, grumbling the answer. “Louder!” She snapped.

“I threw ah man over board!” I concede.

“Again!” She shouts slamming the arm against the table, I wince at the loud noise. She sighs and turns back around, her back hunched over the arm.

I stood up and started walking around the back of the shop. In the corner she had a small bed and dresser. I turned on my heel and gazed in awe at the large sphere of metal and light. I ambled closer and looked through the glass window into the bright light.

“Owi!” I heard as something came crashing down on my head. I turned around into Victoria’s annoyed face, she was holding my mech arm like a weapon. My hands flew to my head.

“You hit me with my own arm!” I say incredulously. “It’s wrong to harm an unarmed man!” I shout.

She rolled her eyes and groaned. “The arms finished. Don’t break it. And stay away from my generator.” I took it from her leisurely, and removed my shirt to put the damn thing on. “I see you still are a scrawny little kid.” She states, glancing me up and down.

“I’m older than you! Do you wanna see how much of a man I am?” I taunt, gesturing to my pants.

“I swear if you even try I will personally chop it off.” She says. I grin, pulling my shirt back on.

I moved the mech arm around, flexing out the fingers. I didn’t know how it worked, and I didn’t care too. It moved when I wanted it too. That was all that was important. “G’nigh’ Vic. I’m ‘eaded ‘ome.” I say, ruffling her purple hair (with the fleshy hand). She slaps my hand down.

“Why can’t I come along?” She demands. I nearly groan at the question. We’ve had this conversation a million times over. My face hardens with resolve, and I look down at her.

“No.” I state firmly.

“That doesn’t answer the question!” She says in outrage. I sigh.

“Ye can’. Tha’s why.” I say. She grins.

“What’s that? I can?” She asks. I silently curse my accent, and clear my throat.

“You can’.” I groan. “You can’t!” I shout, correcting my accent.

She huffs with indignation and crosses her arms, I walk past her, and stop at the doorway, glancing back over my shoulder.

“G’night, Vic.” I repeat sincerely from earlier, bowing my head goodbye.

“Gnight you idiot!” She shouts in reply. I smile as I walk back to my ship.

The Victorrus (a name Victoria pokes fun at quite often) is fairly large for a medium-sized boat, but small for a large boat. It’s big enough to house around twenty men, which is all that was needed what with the gears, and steam, and blech doing all the work. Managing and figuring out how it flies or sails is up to the crew. Not me.

It was made of a dark oak, and gold swirled up in wave designs on the hull of it. The bow sprit had a gold mermaid (Lily, as mentioned earlier), and the rail and actual bow sprit were sturdy (except for the occasional patch, where I had accidentally broken something off). The fore sail was a dirty white, with patches and blood on the bottom due to the occasional- Mishap. Vicctorus was written in lavender (Vic insisted) sloppily over the previous ships name.

I could remember the day I had gotten the beauty. The owner had been drunk enough to except my arm wrestling challenge. He failed horribly, and lost his ship and crew in the proccess. While I’d feel sorry for him in another circumstance, this was the same man who had been hitting on Vic earlier on, despite her not wanting his advances.

When I arrive my second in command came running up. She has one of the few girls on this ship and would back me up in a fight no matter what. She had black hair that was always braided back and mocha colored skin. Her dark eyes were wide with worry as she hurried up to my side.

“What is it Angelica?” I asked, my voice letting out a hint of worry.

“Callum and Conrad are missing, they said they would be back an hour ago.” She reported promptly.

“They migh’ ‘ave jus’ lost track o’ time… Still…” I thought for a moment. “You stay ‘ere with the ship, I’ll take two men an’ go look for ‘em. Did they say where ‘ey were goin’?”

“To Cardigan Hall.” She told me.