Trial of the Spades

[hiken]

Who: The Spades Crew + Anyone wandering by or onto their ship.
Where: Isla Empieza, The Sun
When: 12/15 - 12/21
What: Shenanigans! The Cold Curse, Sailing, Etc
Warnings: None so far. Possibly violence, given this crew.
Style: Prose/Action. Either or!
Status: OPEN

Threads below! Feel free to drop in your own, just remember to date them. More 'general' threads will come up after the crew sets sail.

Comments

[hiken]

Tryin' to figure us out. I've been sleepin' too much over the last few weeks.

[Sleeping or recovering from injuries.]

I wanted to set this up awhile ago.

[reluctantjinrou]

I see. Well awhile ago, someone told me to clean things. That's the last I heard about it.

[hiken]

Ehhh. How pathetically unambitious. You gotta have a cool title, Natsuno.

[reluctantjinrou]

A cool title? Like what?

[That's the kind of thing people talked about when he was a child.]

[hiken]

You wanna be our gunner?

[Strange how he just thought of it.

Coincidentally, Ace had just bought a bunch of rifles and pistols.]

[reluctantjinrou]

I don't really know how to do that. I can learn, of course, if someone is willing to teach me.

[This is just the beginning of a pattern, really Ace.]

[hiken]

Ah, don't you remember? [Ace nonchalantly leaned over and without looking, fired a bullet of flames from his fingertip--taking out a bottle resting on a barrel halfway across the pier.]

I've got a trigger finger of my own.

[reluctantjinrou]

[He smiles a little bit.]

Well that might suit me better than hand to hand combat. I'd like to think I'm improving though, Marco and I did some sparring a few days ago. He was teaching me about footwork.

[hiken]

Yeah. Surprisin' enough, Marco's not complaining about you. So, I figure you must be doing better than he thought.

[This was always good. Getting Marco to being an ornery old man was a constant goal--one Ace was horrendous at.]

[reluctantjinrou]

That's encouraging. I did take fire when we were defending the ship but it wasn't a huge deal. [He rubs his neck absently.] I was healed within the hour.

[hiken]

See? Bein' a vampire can pay off. [Immediately, Ace reached over to just sort of ruffle the fuck out of Natsuno's hair.]

Now, you gotta exude some sorta confidence or something.

[reluctantjinrou]

[Aside from a surprised noise, Natsuno doesn't really react aside from giving him a bland look. It's not like Ace can make his hair look messier than it already does.]

I suppose so, but I don't really like being a vampire. However, I also understand I don't really have much of a choice in the matter.

[He arches an eyebrow.]

I will admit I'm not very confident in my abilities as a fighter, in comparison with people who can actually fight. The fight I was planning for at home was a suicide mission, which serves no purpose when I've promised to stay alive for a significant portion of the future. [Thanks a lot, Riku] Not a very practical strategy, I'll admit.

[hiken]

Ehhh. Yeah, you can leave those plans to me. I'm better at gettin' outta the consequences than most people on the ship.

[Since he was a dirty cheater--as was Marco.]

Still, I like that kinda attitude. Anyone who's willing to throw themselves into danger for whatever reason--it's a bit of craziness on your part. Now, we just gotta figure out how to get you to use that craziness and not disregard yourself, alright?

[reluctantjinrou]

Alright, I suppose I can manage. I'm willing to learn the necessary skills, at any rate. Perhaps I would be more suited to being the gunner anyhow.

[hiken]

That'll do.

Admittedly, we'll be keepin' you away from the cannons for a bit. Sure you get why.

[reluctantjinrou]

I understand it, yes.

[hiken]

And, we gotta work on your ambitions. C'mon.

You didn't even try to fight me on that.

[reluctantjinrou]

Well I'm a logical person, I understand why you can't just put someone with no knowledge on something so dangerous. I'm not certain what that has to do with ambition. Would you prefer if I ask you to let me shoot something now?

[hiken]

Naturally.

It's just not just 'learning', Natsuno! It's wanting to learn. I could try and teach a horse to fire a gun all I wanted, but he's not equipped for it and on top of that--he's just gonna be interested in runnin' around and eating hay. What good's that do him?

[reluctantjinrou]

[Natsuno smiles just a bit.]

I want to be useful. Learning this would make me much more useful then I am now. It's a logical enough position for me. Taking fire isn't likely to make me stop shooting, because it would be pretty hard to kill me.

[hiken]

Even if you can recover, you still don't wanna get shot. Fallin' off a boat could still mess you up and we may not be able to get you back out.

So, the trainin' is obviously gonna involve a lot of exercises to make sure you know exactly how those things work.

[reluctantjinrou]

I know, I did get shot last time around and it was not that pleasant. Fortunately I didn't fall off the boat.

[Natsuno nods.]

I'm looking forward to it, Ace.