high_seas | Time To Meet Their Fate

Entry tags:

ja'far,
sinbad

Time To Meet Their Fate

Who: Sinbad and Ja'far
Where: The Maharajan/Eternal Bliss
When: A few days after their trip to Sweetwater
What: Who knew there would be a Navy blockade here?
Warnings: Probably language. Ja'far tends to swear. Constantly.

Sailing this sea was much like sailing the other waters he'd encountered before. It wasn't too difficult to navigate and it's been calm and quiet for him and Ja'far.

Sinbad could feel the subtle change in the waves and he grinned, moving the helm. Something was coming up ahead of them. In the distance they could see the next island and surrounding it were ships. It almost looked like a fleet. Well, wasn't that interesting? Sinbad smirked to himself again.

"Ja'far! Incoming!: He waved his hand out in front of them. "Be ready in case they don't let us pass!"

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There was a glaring fault in that particular order and like the dutiful underling he was, Ja'far felt obligated to point it out to his king-to-be.

"Why can't you just find another island if they're not gonna let us pass?"

He dragged himself up from his usual spot on the deck, a small shelter he'd with barrels and a few planks of wood, and peeked over the rail. Sure enough, there were an awful lot of boats and they looked pretty organized, all flying white and gray flags with the same emblem. That was never a good sign.

"We're not going to the island exactly, there's more beyond this point, but I am pretty sure they've already seen us, so I'd say you'd better be ready." Sinbad responded logically.

"We'll just go by, but that seems like an unfriendly sign, wouldn't you say? Then again, they could just be waiting there, but since in this place everyone seems to be referring to themselves as pirates, we probably can't pass as mere sailors."

He let out a dramatic sigh.

"Seems like a hero's work is never done, is it Ja'far? Here we were minding our own business when suddenly I'm seeing this fleet of, I don't know, soldiers probably and from my experience on Parthevia they tend not to be all that friendly, although maybe I can just talk to them..." Sinbad prattled on.

Ja'far pulled himself up on the railing and sat, since craning his neck to see over it was kind of annoying.

"Dumbass. Just look cute and harmless and say you're lost. Maybe cry or something." He tugged the bandages down off his face and started unraveling them. It kind of ruined his image, but he could pull off "cute kid" if he had to. He preferred to stay wrapped up as much as possible, though, since the last thing he needed was to be stuck on a boat with Sinbad AND sunburned all over.

Sinbad was quiet a moment, moving to lean against the railing next to Ja'far, looking out at the Navy.

"I doubt they're going to give a fuck." He put it bluntly. Ja'far's language was rubbing off on him, at least, he found himself swearing more frequently. "You worked for the Parthevian soldiers. Do you think they cared that I didn't want to be drafted?"

Ja'far kicked his heels against the side of the boat and considered the ships blockading the island.

"Parthevians are pretty ruthless, yeah, but that's because Parthevia is a shithole. Cute works pretty damn well everywhere else, not that I usually bother with that crap."

He puffed up a little bit at that. Subdued and contemplative as he was at the moment, his basic nature wasn't changing any time soon.

"There's too many of them to kill, though, so we've gotta be sneaky."

It was a serious discussion and Sinbad was thinking. It was easy to tell because he was quiet, which was very strange for him.

"I've thought of a problem. We don't look like two local kids who got lost. Our clothes don't look the same as any we've seen yet."

He tapped his fingers on the railing.

"I have no intention of getting caught though. You?"

"I ain't getting caught. If you get caught, it's your own damn fault."

Ja'far's eyes didn't leave the ships, the wheels in his head turning as he counted them and tried to figure out what kind of weapons they had. Not that he could do much against a boat. He could sneak on and get to work on the crew, but even that would take him a pretty long time with as many people as those boats could probably hold.

"Cute'll throw 'em off enough to stab them in the guts, even if they don't fall for the act."

"No one is getting caught then." Sinbad grinned at him.

He disappeared for a moment and returned with a cup of water which he promptly pours over Ja'far's head from behind without any preamble.

"There, now we look like we've been through a storm."

His own hair was unbound and dripping wet.

"WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!" Ja'far almost lost his grip on the rail, but he managed to catch himself and rather than topple into the ocean, he launched himself at Sinbad instead.

"WHAT KIND OF MORON ARE YOU?" He would have grabbed him by the front of the shirt and tossed him into the ocean to show him what a real drowned sailor looked like but a) that whole "promising to follow him" thing and b) Sinbad was way bigger than he was and he'd never be able to pull it off.

"It's just water Ja'far. Breathe a little." Sinbad rolled his eyes. He reached over and tried to ruffle his hair playfully.

"It'll help us pull off the cute thing!"

"THEY'VE BEEN SITTING THERE ALL DAY! THEY KNOW THERE'S NO STORM! YOUR CLOTHES AREN'T EVEN WET, YOU DUMBFUCK!"

He wasn't even in on the plan and he was already better at it that Sinbad. This wasn't boding well.

"You're forgetting something, Ja'far."

He tapped his head. "You're assuming they're that smart."

"YOU'RE ASSUMING THEY'RE AS STUPID AS YOU ARE!"

You couldn't really say he didn't have a point with that one. Ja'far scowled and spread his arms wide.

"Our boat's fine, nothing's wet but our hair, and you expect them to think we've been through a storm?!"

"Look, we'll cut the cord on the sail so it looks like we don't know what we're doing. The repair is quick after that." Sinbad said, thinking a little bit.

Ja'far rolled his eyes and began unwrapping the wire off his legs. It looked like they were going through with this harebrained scheme no matter what, so he might as well do what he could. If nothing else, he'd play it off like Sinbad had kidnapped him or something if the other boy was coming off as too sketchy.

He secured both lengths of wire to the railing, then wrapped the other ends around his hands and hopped off the boat into the ocean below. Luckily, it was fairly calm today and it wasn't too hard to pull himself back on board, now properly waterlogged. He untied the wire and added it to the lengths on his arms instead of replacing it on his legs where it would be too visible.

"They're still not gonna believe it."

"You won't know until we try."

Sinbad pulled out his sword and slashed through a single cord, dropping part of the sail loose.

"There, now we'll look incompetent."

Which Sinbad definitely was not.

"We already look fucking incompetent." Ja'far tried to squeeze some sea water out of his shaggy hair to keep it from getting in his eyes. It was kind of a futile endeavor. Soaking wet, he looked even smaller than usual. If you couldn't see his daggers and you were able to ignore his death glare, he might even look somewhat harmless.

"So what now?"

"Try and look more pathetic."

Sinbad moved away from the help and took a seat on the deck, trying to look like some lost little kid.

Ja'far sat down as well, curling in on himself and ultimately looking like a miserable pile of wet rags. Strangely, his usually malevolent, reptilian eyes darkened into something that might actually pass as the eyes of a normal kid who didn't go around screaming his head off at people and killing them. He saved the fake tears, though, since he couldn't keep those up for long.

Actually, he was dangerously close to "cute."

"This pathetic enough?"

"Let's see what it does." Sinbad commented, nodding a bit.

He curled in on himself, pushing some of his clothes a little off his shoulders so he looked somewhat pathetic himself. He smeared a bit of dirt on his cheeks, making something of a muddy mess with a streak or two, but that didn't matter. Sinbad kept still as they floated into the Navy's path.

"So what's the plan when we get close? Do you want to get onto the island or just past the blockade?"

They could use some more supplies and Ja'far wouldn't mind getting some rest on dry land inside a nice building where the sun wasn't beating down on him nonstop, but if he was stuck on the boat, then he was stuck on the boat. He was really going to start hating boats really fast if this was how things were going to go. Maybe he could steal a hat or something.

"I don't think we should visit the island, but there's one nearby I'm sure of it. Another day maybe. I can see it in the distance. So we should move on, if we can. Be ready though, in case we need to fight our way out. I'll give a signal."

"So do the cute and pathetic thing until we get past. Got it."

Ja'far was content to follow Sinbad's lead as long as he knew it was actually going to get them somewhere. He had his doubts, but he had no choice at the moment. The wind was sending them drifting closer and closer to the massive ships of the blockade. Must be nice to have a ship like that, big enough to go inside and not be cramped. Their sailboat was big enough to accommodate the two of them, but there were days he wanted to be able to spend a few hours without having to see Sinbad's dumb, always cheerful face.

It would be nice, but even an experienced sailor like Sinbad needed to be able to handle the ship and if they had a bigger one, he might not be able to control it as easily.

They remained in that state until a man from the Navy was shouting at them. Sinbad got to his feet slowly, adding a stumble and he moved over to the side.

"Please, we've just been through a terrible storm! We're trying to get home, just the next island over."

Ja'far sniffled and scrambled over to the rail to huddle next to Sinbad, big eyes dark and miserable. He didn't really even need to fake a shiver. Jumping into the ocean was probably a bad idea in hindsight, no matter how effective it was.

"We're really sorry!"

Hey, it sounded good, and the man who was yelling at them left the rail of his ship momentarily, probably to go confer to a superior. Ja'far elbowed Sinbad in the side with a little smirk. They were doing pretty well.

The superior was the next person to come to the railing, peering at the two small children looking rather pathetic. When he asked for papers, their permission to sail, Sinbad gave him a look that was convincingly ignorant.

"My daddy has those things. I mean, we took the boat out without permission. If we don't hurry back, we're going to be in a lot of trouble. Please let us go? I don't want to be punished. My friend and I were hoping just to sneak back before he noticed. We even damaged the ship."

His lower lip quivered.

"Do you know how to fix it?"

The sailors on deck of the Navy ship conferred and the commander offered to send someone down to have a look a the ship. Ja'far wasn't entirely certain that that was something Sinbad wanted, so he just sneezed and looked pathetic.

"I'm cold."

He must be coming off as a kid half his age. Usually it would piss him off, but if it worked, it worked.

Sinbad nodded a bit and stepped closer to Ja'far.

"Thank you for your help mister!" He was managing to come off as a little younger than himself that way. He wasn't that much bigger than Ja'far anyway. Let them come on the ship, he thought, he could handle things if they went south.

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Time To Meet Their Fate

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I have no icons for this scene, ha XD

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